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THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 








‘ANAd NYAHLAOS ‘OPMWVLAVINVTIV LV SSHYLYOA VONT 





THE WORLD OF 
THE INCAS 


A SOCIALISTIC STATE OF THE PAST 


BY 


OTFRID VON HANSTEIN 


TRANSLATED BY 


ANNA BARWELL 


E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
681 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
1925 











(AM 


Ms 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 

PAGE 
. ; ; Q-25 
History and tradition as to the foundation of the Inca 
kingdom—Earliest laws—The Inca Emperor and the High 
Priests—Training of the Crown Prince. 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR . 


CHAPTER II 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE REALIZED BY THE 
INCAS i : : : Q 26-60 


A socialistic state under despotic emperors—Census and 
division of the nation—The twenty-four chief laws—The 
Amautas’ seat of learning—Made roads and irrigation 
system—Fertilization of rocky land—Manuring and improve- 
ment of the soil—Agriculture and handicraft—Mining— 
Fisheries and hunting—Close-time of game—Colonization of 
conquered countries—Domestic life—Marriage and the 
Sun-convent—Burial of the dead. 


CHAPTER III 


THE INCA PEOPLE AS ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND 
PHYSICIANS . e 7 : : ; ; : 61-81 


The sacred Raymi Feast—The golden chain in Lake Urcos 
—The capital, Cuzco: divisions of the city and its palaces 
—Haucaypata Square, the site of the festivals—The Sun- 
Temple and ‘‘ The Golden Garden ’’—The fortress Saxua- 
huaman—Sacrificial feasts—The guipus and the art of 
making them—Knowledge of astronomy, geography and 
medicine. 
5 


6 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


CHAPTER IV 
PAGE 
UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE—- WARFARE — POSTAL 
SYSTEM «Vou S eG  n 82-96 


Citadels and fortifications—Postal couriers—Summons to 
war—Disciplined mobilization by use of the tribal-rolls— 
Arming of soldiers—Excellent provisioning on the march— 
Conquests—Method of fighting—Triumphal processions. 


CHAPTER V 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR . ° . . . 97-120 


Pizarro’s parentage and education—His early travels up 
to the discovery of Peru, and the hardships of these voyages 
—Pizarro is rewarded in Spain with the Governorship of 
the country, still to be conquered—His brothers and com- 
panions. 


CHAPTER vo 
WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS AND GREED OF GOLD. I2I-148 


Conditions in the Inca kingdom at the period of the 
Spaniards’ arrival—Huayna Capac, the last of the great 
Incas—The brothers Huascar and Atahuallpa—The division 
of the kingdom—Atahuallpa’s war against his brother— 
Capture of Huascar—Pizarro on the island of Puma—The 
destruction of Tumbez—Bold march over the mountains 
—Pizarro in Caxamarca—Treachery towards Atahuallpa 
and his capture. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 9 .\)0 2). 


Atahuallpa in captivity—A fabulous ransom—Treasures to 
the value of gold millions—Huascar murdered by Atahuallpa’s 
friends—Almagro disagrees with Pizarro—Destruction of 
the Temple of Pachacama by Hernando Pizarro—The first 
Spaniards in Cuzco—Distribution of the gold treasures— 
Atahuallpa keeps his word, but is nevertheless condemned 
to death—Execution of the Inca—Ridiculous form of 
baptism—Inca Tupac Huallpa and his death—Execution 


CONTENTS c 


PAGE 
of the General Chalcuchima—Entry into Cuzco and 


spoliation of the city—Inca Manco—Destruction of the 
Golden Garden—Resistance on the part of Inca Manco— 
Siege and destruction of Cuzco. 


CHAPTER VIII 


WHAT CIVILIZED CHRISTIANS MADE OUT OF THE SUN- 
RUVRIPARADION ww bk  TOQ-TB9 


Twelve million people destroyed in sixty years—Complete 
desolation of the land—Forced baptisms—Inquisition and 
burning of heretics—Tortures—Strife between the con- 
quistadoves—Murder of Almagro—Francisco Pizarro mur- 
dered by Almagro’s son and his friends—Survey of Pizarro’s 
lifework—Gonzalo Pizarro heads an insurrection and is put 
to death—Execution of the last of the Incas—Survey of 
Peru from Inca times to the present day. 





eat 








nN 


wt YA 


Mey orld of the Iticas 


CHAPTER I 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 


T is the great lawgivers who lay the foundations 

.of important civilizations, whether they are 
founders of religions such as Moses and Buddha, Christ 
and Mohammed, or whether lawgivers of temporal 
_ states and of the classic world such as Solon, Lycurgus 
and the rest—the names of such men will recur to 
every fairly educated mind. But who was Manco 
Capac ? 

Yet he created a state, a code of morals and civiliza- 
tion that for four centuries transformed a large number 
of Indian tribes, alike only in their savage state, into 
a highly civilized people, who were not only equal to 
us in many points, but might even set us an example. 
Nay, more, this state of his seems almost modern to 
our present-day progressive ideas, whilst all those who 
cherish the ideal of a communistic, socialistic state will 
find here an instance of such a community, see its 
possibility, and, when all is said and done, its impos- 


sibility as far as we are concerned. 
| : 


10 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Manco Capac was, moreover, a religious teacher 
What founder of any civilization is not? Religion— 
the firm belief in a higher being who knows those 
secrets of earth-born men that are hidden from human 
rulers, who has power after death to punish or to 
reward—religion is indeed the most powerful ally of 
the founder of any civilization, and if there is such an 
almighty being, no matter in what form, whether as a 
person or as the embodiment of universal force, his 
name is after all immaterial, be it the one Jehovah of 
the Jews, the God—three in one—of Christ, Pachacutec 
the supreme Creator, or Inti the Sun-God, provided 
only his worshippers believe in him. 

Thus the founder of every civilization has given to 
this God the special form which best suited his own 
purpose. Moses, who led the unruly Children of Israel 
through the wilderness, needed an angry, avenging 
God ; Mohammed, whose one ambition was to conquer 
the world for Islam, required a belligerent God, sword 
in hand ; Buddha, the teacher of dreamy, gentle Indians, 
preached the God of infinite love to all created things, 
whether man, beast or plant ; and Christ, the tender- 
hearted apostle of brotherly love to men, who—had He 
also been a worldly ruler and organizer, and had not 
the superior power of the Jewish priests, who feared 
His teaching, combined with the Roman rule to put 
Him to such a speedy death—might have founded a 
kingdom in many respects not unlike Manco Capac’s— 
Christ, too, proclaimed a God, the divine father of his 
children. All these religious leaders had, moreover, 
another point in common that they called themselves 
either the son or the embodiment of the Godhead and 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 11 


their successors God’s representatives on earth. And 
what have these representatives from time to time 
made of the divinity of their founder ? 

Have not the Popes in their lust of power and their 
fear of anyone who, by the strength of his own thought, 
might pierce the wall they had built up round human 
hearts, changed Christ’s God of mercy into a terrible 
heathen deity, who, like the Tetzcatlipoca of the Aztecs, 
demands endless human sacrifices, for what other name 
can be given to the auto-da-fés and witch-burnings of 
the “‘ Holy Inquisition ”’ ? 

This by the way, only as a help to us in understanding 
much that might seem inconsistent with the modern 
spirit of the civilization created by that genial Indian. 
And now we will turn our attention to him. 

What does history say of Manco Capac ? 

Father Francisco of Toledo relates thus: 

“It was in the early years of the twelfth century, 
about the time when the German Emperor, Henry IV, 
had to expiate his sin of struggling against Gregory VII 
by his penance at Canossa, that Manco Capac, the first 
Inca, accompanied by his sister Oello Huaco, whom he 
married and, later on, raised to the rank of ‘ Mama. 
Coya,’ the Queen-Empress, wandered from the islands 
of Lake Titicaca over the bleak pass of Huilcanota 
towards the north to rescue from their miserable 
existence in the deepest darkness of barbarism and to 
convert to civilization the wild cannibal tribes of 
Indians living in these mountain valleys.” 

Where did Manco Capac come from originally ? How 
did he reach those islands in Lake Titicaca? Whence 
did he derive the high culture, the enlightened know- 


12 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


ledge, the wisdom that fitted him for his work? These 
are some of the many secrets hidden by the primeval 
forests and wild mountain solitudes in South and Central 
America. He doubtless belonged to another, still older 
civilization, and may have been compelled to flee by _ 
some unknown cause, possibly even the destruction 
of his home. 

Let us, for a moment, consider the country which 

was the cradle of so much civilization that has not 
descended to our day. In the forests of the River 
Amazon; farther north, in the Mexican province of 
Chiapas, where the ruins of the castle of Palenque lie 
in. deep sleep amidst the primeval forests near the 
shores of the Usumacinta; in the well-nigh deserted 
and wooded district of the Pete in Guatamala, where 
the ruins still exist of entire Indian towns and fortresses 
and where even now, amongst the wild flowers of the 
tropical flora, the most varied cultivated plants bear 
testimony to former work by human hands—in all 
these districts monuments are still to be found of earlier 
periods of prosperity, some of which, like those Indian 
towns, - were brought to. desolation. by the Spanish 
messengers of civilization, whilst others had perished 
long before any European set foot upon these distant 
shores. | , 
7 But Peru, more than all other districts, is bestrewn 
with ruins such as these, that bear evidence to a past 
dating back for many centuries, numbers of the buildings 
indeed being pronounced by investigators as amongst 
the first raised by the hand of man. | 

Peru offers, too, a landscape as wild as it is irregular 
and broken. 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 13 


When Pizarro, the conquistador, first turned the keels 
of his vessels southwards to press on from Panama to 
the fabulous hoards of gold in these unknown regions, 
he must have needed an iron will, indomitable energy 
‘and delight in the conquest of apparently insurmount- 
able difficulties not to turn back in despair from the 
barren stretches of coast-line, inhabited only by enor- 
mous numbers of sea-lions or the chosen breeding 
haunts of gulls in their thousands, from the dashing 
of terrible billows against inhospitable cliffs, from wild, 
jagged rocks with threatening spurs, projecting far out 
into the ocean, and behind all these the even wilder 
mountain-world of the Andes, whose summits glitter 
white with eternal snows. 

In the interior the nature of the country is even 
more stupendous: great stretches of desert, treeless 
plateaux bereft both of water and of rain, where only 
the giant cactus raises its portentous head above the 
sun-burnt sand; many, many miles only trodden by 
the silent vicuna or the quick steps of passing flocks 
of llamas; a strangely vibrating atmosphere, fitting 
home for the circling condor; long chains of mighty 
snow mountains, with here and there an active volcano 
sullying their white garments with the blood-red stains 
of its fiery streams of lava. Then, too, torrents, fed 
from the high mountain glaciers, dash through the 
steep ravines they have hollowed in the rocks, whilst 
these solitary valleys teem with all the luxuriant 
splendour of the tropics—rich primeval forests with 
their impenetrable lianas and marvellous giant butter- 
flies hovering over the brightly coloured flowers, birds 
with the gayest of plumage, stealthy wild cats, colossal 


14 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


lizards and serpents, to say nothing of the apes swinging 
from branch to branch and ravening beasts of prey. 

Then again a meadow of shimmering green, a dreamy 
mountain lake, often, like the wide expanse of Titicaca’s 
waters, sparkling amongst even mightier snowy giants 
at a height exceeding the topmost point of Mont Blanc. 

And in the utter solitude of these valleys so cut off 
from the world and from each other by insurmountable 
natural barriers, we find monuments of extinct human 
races—their only epitaph these ruined buildings—who 
flourished there possibly for centuries until they were 
destroyed by the onslaught of wild, barbaric tribes or 
as the result of the earthquakes, so common in this. 
district. 

In the valley of Tiahuanuco, south-south-west of 
Titicaca, from which it is separated by mountain 
chasms and precipices, there are, even at the present 
day, such ruins of extraordinary size and extent, whose 
origin the Incas themselves could not explain even at 
the time of the conquistadores. 

“ They were built by giants or by enemies of the 
Gods, hence their destruction.”’ These ruins of Tiahua- 
nuco, in which explorers discovered remains of temples, 
castles, fortifications—possibly the prototype of the 
Saxuahuaman fortress in Cuzco—curious stone slabs, 
models in miniature of future buildings, and a system 
of irrigation, probably formed the home from which 
Manco Capac and his sister started on their pilgrimage, 
possibly driven out by the destruction of those places 
—which he purposely did not disclose to posterity— 
and certainly endued with the wisdom born and nur- 
tured in those mountain solitudes. | 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 15 


The reason is more simply given in the fable that 
romance has woven round the name of Manco Capac 
as told by Garcilasso de la Vega, who proudly claims 
for himself a place amongst the hero’s descendants. 

““Pachacamac the Supreme Creator—who is so great 
that poor human nature may not presume to worship 
_him within the confines of a temple—and his son, Inti 
the Sun-God, were moved with compassion by the 
ignorance of mankind, still wrapped in the slumber of 
barbarism, so he chose as his messengers two of his 
children, Manco Capac and his sister Oello.”’ 

This choice was said to have taken place on the 
sacred rock rising out of the lake on the northern side 
of the island of Titicaca, a supremely fitting place for 
the scene of a divine commission. 

At their feet this lake, situated at the height of the 
summit of Mont Blanc, with waters so unfathomable 
that the explorer Squier could find no bottom, even 
at a depth of one hundred fathoms; this lake whose 
waters never freeze but pass on through the narrow 
valley of the Desaguadero to the almost unexplored 
lake Aullagas, lying towards the south in Bolivia; 
this lake surrounded by the majesty of the Andes’ 
snowy peaks, beginning with the mighty Illampu, 
almost equal to the highest points of the Himalayas, 
and stretching away, summit after summit, to the 
scarcely less mighty Illimani. 

The silent stupendous power of almighty Nature 
around, and on the plateau rising so precipitously out 
of the lake—Manco Capac and his sister! No wonder 
that, later on, this spot was overlaid with pure gold by 
the reverent hands of faithful worshippers! 


16 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 

It was indeed a gigantic picture for the eyes of one 
who was chosen to hear and carry the divine message. 

Here then—so runs the tale—Inti, the Sun-God, 
approached the chosen messenger and placed in his 
hand a golden staff. ) | 

“ Take this, Manco Capac, and turn thy foatenm to 
the North. Cross the mountains and fear not the 
toilsome path over burning desert, swamp or stone! 
Each evening when thou liest down to rest, cast the 
golden staff from out thy hand. But so soon as the 
evening comes, when the staff shall disappear beneath 
earth’s mantle, then know that thou hast reached the 
place whither God has sent thee. 

“ There fix thy dwelling and, turning thy sens North, 
South, East and West, found the realm of the four 
suns—the realm of Tahuantinsuyu.” 

Such was Inti’s command, and the two messengers 
started on their quest, crossing to the western shore 
on the tossing ‘‘ balsa,’”’ the narrow raft made of plaited 
reeds still in use to-day, on which the passenger kneels 
in a painful struggle to keep his balance, whilst the 
boatman, standing astride at one end, propels his 
vessel forward by beating the water with a short thick 
stick in place of oars. . 

From the northern end of the lake they passed 
through the narrow entrance leading up to the wild, - 
mountainous pass of Huillcanota, a treeless, terrifying 
and rocky desert, overshadowed by icy mountain peaks 
and bestrewn with swampy lakes of tainted water. 
““ Beware, it is Veruga water,”’ the guide of to-day cries 
to the traveller who, tortured with burning thirst, tries 
to drink of these sulphurous, poisonous springs. 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 17 


Yet there is something grand, almost unearthly, in 
the majestic desolation of the landscape. 

Every evening the travellers cast the God’s golden 
staff upon the ground, but it was not until they had 
passed the terrors of the pass and descended to the 
charming, fruitful valley of the Hutenay that, one 
evening, the golden symbol disappeared. ‘‘ With joy 
the divine messengers paused in their journey and 
founded, at the confluence of the Hutenay and the 
Chunchillmayo, the capital Cuzco, taught and trained the 
wild natives, thus laying the foundation of the mighty 
empire of Tahuantinsuyu.’’ We again quote the fable. 

Doubtless a small company of men, fleeing from the 
fall of the kingdom in Tihuanuco, passed, under the 
leadership of Manco Capac, over the Huillcanota Pass, 
and, thanks to their superior intelligence, or perhaps 
also to better weapons, reduced to subjection the tribes 
of native barbarians. 

Barbarians! A relative term only! Applied by the 
Incas to those wild mountain races whom they subdued, 
but no less the designation they themselves were to 
receive later on from the lips of their Spanish con- 
querors. 

Yet these barbarians of the Cuzco valley, who in 
Manco Capac’s day certainly stood on a lower plane of 
civilization, wearing no ‘clothes and living mainly on 
the forest fruits and wild creatures such as lizards, 
snakes and river-crabs—even they had already left 
behind them—and completely forgotten—a period of 
civilization to which testimony is borne amongst. the 
Inca monuments by a few isolated ruins that point to 


an origin of much earlier date. 
2 


18 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Even here there had already existed a kingdom that 
doubtles possessed a written language, which, strangely 
enough, the Inca realm never achieved, for even at 
the time of her zenith her people were content to knot 
together, in artful wise, gay-coloured threads into their 
‘““quipus’’; these were indeed so perfect a substitute 
for writing, that scholars are able from them to form 
not only a comprehensive picture of Inca history and 
progress, but to find in them many examples of their 
poetic art and even entire dramatic plays. 

Here, then, Manco Capac founded the capital Cuzco 
and began the systematic civilization of the natives and 
the creation of the state of “‘ The Four Suns.” 

His first object was to bring to the native races the 
new religion of the Sun-God whose son he claimed 
to be. 

What religion was more likely to appeal to those 
simple minds than the belief that the Sun whose heat- 
giving rays each day disperses the terrors of the night, 
nourishes and ripens the fields of corn, bringing life and 
joy to all creation, watches over men too with divine 
goodness ? 

The savage tribes found, too, no difficulty in believing 
in the God’s son, Manco Capac, for he and his com- 
panions, with their comparatively costly garments and 
their bronze weapons, adorned with gold, formed a 
striking contrast to the naked forms of the natives, 


who, moreover, gave ready homage to the strangers’. 


superior wisdom. 

The first command issued by Manco Capac aimed 
therefore at also giving a distinctive outward mark to 
the subjects of the Sun-God’s realm: henceforth no 


ba 


ae 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 19 


one in the kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu was to go un- 
clothed. y 

We will deal later on with the other laws, but now 
we will see how Manco Capac confirmed the supremacy 
of his own dynasty and how this supremacy developed. 

Manco Capac married his own sister, and gave her 
the title of Queen, at the same time issuing a decree 
that every successive ruler must marry his eldest sister 
to provide an heir to the throne, after whose birth, 
however, all marital relations should cease between 
the ruler and his sister-wife. 

Strangely enough, in spite of this continual in- 
breeding, he was followed by a succession of thirteen 
remarkable men. Apart, moreover, from the physical 
danger of such a custom, this decree was a source of 
extraordinary stability to the throne, precluding, as it 
did from the first, all disputes as to succession, since 
none of the numerous children born to every Inca’s 
other and subordinate wives had any claim to the throne 
at all. 

This succession was broken only twice; the first 
time when Urco, the eldest son of the eighth Inca, 
Huivacotsha, proved unworthy of the throne and his 
place was taken by his brother Yupanqui, who after- 
wards, under the name of Pachacutec Yupanqui Capac 
Intiptshuri, Inca Yupanqui the Great, the Absolute, 
the Unconquerable, became one of the most distin- 
guished of his race. 

It is true it then so chanced that by way of exception 
both brothers were the children of the Mama-Coya 
(Queen-Mother). 

The second case happened when Huayna Capac, the 


20 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


twelfth Inca—under whose rule the realm of Tahuan- 
tinsuyu reached the zenith of its power—allowed himself 
to be persuaded to give to a favourite son of a subor- 
dinate wife equal rights of succession with the lawful 
heir, and to name Inca Atahuallpa as independent 
ruler of the province of Pinta. This unhappy deviation 
from the dynasty decrees was a contributory cause of 
the downfall of the realm, coinciding, as it did, with 
the advent of Pizarro, who was shrewd enough to 
utilize the war between the brothers as a means to the 
conquest of the kingdom, which would otherwise not 
have proved so easy a prey. 

At the side of the Inca, distinguished from his subjects 
by his special dress as well as by the veneration rendered 
to him as to divinity himself, stood as trusted counsellor 
the “ Villjac Vmu,’’ High Priest to the Sun-God. 

Manco Capac called himself the son of this deity. 
This claim to divinity—we have its counterpart in our 
modern rulers ‘‘ by the grace of God ’’—was at that 
time a necessity amongst the wild aborigines, and 
proved, being in full accord with the conditions of the 
day, a further bulwark to the royal house. The Inca 
felt himself divine, a God indeed whose duty it was to 
care for his human children with the fatherly goodness 
of the Sun-God whom Manco Capac preached. 

This belief in his own divinity is perhaps the reason 
why each of the twelve Incas fulfilled his office so 
perfectly, and there is no doubt that the wise Villjac 
Vmus, the guardians of the Temple, helped the ruler 
with their sage counsels. 

And again we meet with a strange fact in this unique 
state, for during the four hundred years of its existence 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 21 


we do not once hear of strife between the Inca and his 
chief priest, a remarkable contrast to the dissensions 
between quarrelsome Christian popes and temporal 
rulers. 

The heir to the throne was most carefully educated, 
for after he had passed his first years in the somewhat 
loveless atmosphere in which all Inca children were 
brought up, he passed on at an early age into the school 
of the learned Amautas. 

They did not trouble much about the care of children 
in Tahuantinsuyu. No sooner was the child born 
than the young mother, without any consideration for 
either, at once bathed both herself and it in the cold 
mountain stream and then went about her ordinary 
occupations. 

In the same way it would have been looked upon as 
weak effeminacy for any Inca mother to lift her child 
on to her lap to fondle it. The child’s place was, first 
of all, a rough wooden cradle that the mother rocked 
with her foot from time to time, and later, when the 
little one began to creep about, a hole dug out in the 
earth and lined with rags. Its toy was a rattle of 
mussel shells filled with sand and fastened together 
again. 

For two years every mother—the Mama Coya no less 
than the wife of the “ hatunruna”’ (workman)—suckled 
her child three times a day, and the little creatures, 
as soon as they could walk, would come of their own 
accord to kneel and ask her for this food. 

But then the young Inca was placed in the Amautas’ 
school, where he received most thorough instruction in 
his family’s history, in the principles of statecraft as 


22 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


fixed by law, and also in military tactics from generals 
of experience. | 

The future Crown Prince received a stricter and 
more thorough training than anyone else, and from 
very early years was roused to the consciousness of his 
divine descent. 

After he had undergone for days beforehand a strict 
fast, only broken by a few handfuls of parched maize, 
he went with the other youths to the sacred mountain, 
Huanacaure. Here a maiden from the Monastery of the 
“* Accllias’’—of which we will speak later—handed 
him two golden goblets filled with a drink similar to 
wine called “‘¢shitsha.’’ One he poured out asa drink- 
offering to the Sun-God and the other he drank himself. 

The young men’s hair was cut—common people were 
compelled to wear theirs long—and they were dressed 
in red garments. Then began the examination, the 
first part of which was a test of physical fitness. 
Holding a silver halberd, they had to run at full speed 
to the fortress Cuzco, and whoever was first at the 
goal and seized the standard planted there was pro- 
claimed as ‘“ Huaman”’ (captain). Then followed a 
lengthy examination in military matters, and lastly 
the Crown Prince was examined by the Amautas 
before the Inca and the Villjac Vmu in the art and 
traditions of statecraft. 

The assembled people waited on the great square 
Haucaypata, situated between the Inca’s palace and 
the Sun-God’s Temple, and it was there that the Villjac 
Vmu led the Crown Prince up to his father, the Inca. 

What a wonderful display of pomp was here! They 
had long known the secret of washing gold from the 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 23 


river beds, and the Inca’s throne was of massive gold, 
whilst a thick slab of the same precious metal served 
as footstool for his feet. 

The Inca wore a white garment of finest vicuna 
wool; above this a coloured tunic decorated with 
inwoven patterns of gaily coloured flowers, and on his 
shoulders a dark cloak. On his forehead was bound 
thé emblem of his royal rank, the “‘ borla,’’ a red tassel 
with a fringe, overlaid for half its length with gold; 
a golden sun adorned his breast, a golden bracelet 
encircled his left arm, and his feet were encased in 
gold-plaited sandals; in his ears the Inca wore great 
lumps of gold, heavy enough to drag the lobes down 
on to his shoulders. The Villjac Vmu, too, was in full 
state. Above the dark sleeveless garment covering the 
old man’s form was wound another of white, adorned 
with gold and precious stones and bordered with red 
fringes and tassels. His bare arms were both encircled 
with bangles, and from his left hand hung on a thin 
chain a golden concave mirror with which, at the 
Raymi Feast, he kindled the fire on the Sun-God’s 
altar. 

On his head he wore a tiara like a crown with its 
golden sun, and fastened below his chin with the moon’s 
golden sickle. 

It is apparent that his whole make-up was not unlike 
that of a high dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Villjac Vmu then led the young Crown Prince up 
to the Inca, who, in the presence of the whole multitude, 
exhorted him to be ever mindful of his duties as a true 
son of Inti and to observe the statutes of the Incas. 
He then with his own hands pierced his ears and put 


24 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


in each the first earring of a golden needle, afterwards 
placing the yellow tassel betokening royal succession 
round the head of his son, who was now considered: as 
belonging to the circle of the Incas themselves. 

The same excessive pomp was also to be found in 
the Inca’s palace. Costly material draped the walls 
wherever these were not inlaid with gold. The Inca 
ate from golden plates and received beautiful hand- - 
woven napkins and bronze knives from the hands of 
the virgins from the Sun-Temple, whose duty it was 
to wait upon the sovereign and to present his food 
in golden bowls, and whose skilful hands wove the 
costly garments made from the fine vicuna wool reserved 
for the Inca alone and from the bat’s soft skin. 

In the Temple of the Sun-God too, as we shall see 
later on, innumerable treasures were stored. But here 
there was a difference. These mighty stores of gold 
were heaped up in the temples to such a degree that 
even outside the door a great pile of massive gold bars 
was built up like some glittering pile of gilded wood. 
But these temple treasures were not the accumulated 
gains of a greedy priesthood athirst for gold, but, in a 
certain sense, a state treasury in case of necessity, for 
the Inca was, after all, his people’s God and used the 
divine treasure for their good, as need might arise. 

And where would the gold have been safer than in 
the Temple of their God ? ; 

Thus these glittering bars were a provision for war, 
an imperial bank, so to speak, whilst, at the same time, 
affording a gorgeous spectacle for any visitor to the 
capital. 

Such was the life of this mortal god, and when he 


MANCO CAPAC, THE CREATOR 25 


died his body was carefully embalmed and placed on a 
throne in the Temple. At great feasts, however, the 
mummies of the dead Incas—every one in the same 
magnificence as when alive—were carried on -their 
golden thrones out of the Temple and placed on the 
square of Haucaypata, whilst opposite to them were the 
mummies of the Mama Coyas, which had also been 
brought from their resting-place in the Moon-Temple, so 
that the rulers of past days were, so to speak, witnesses 
of the present too. 

Thus we see in the Inca dynasty an autocracy rivalling 
in its pomp that of any Indian Mogul. 

We shall, in the following pages, see how this dynasty 
—perhaps the most autocratic that ever existed— 
managed, by its own distinctive methods it is true, 
to found and to maintain for centuries the most com- 
munistic state this world has ever seen. 


CHAPTER II 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 
REALIZED BY THE INCAS 


HE American writer, Bellamy, in his well-known 
imaginative romance, Looking Backwards, depicted 
what was in his opinion an ideal state in which all private 
property and even money payments had been done 
away with, and in which he advocated, instead, that all 
property should be held by the state, that the perform- 
ance of certain work should be obligatory on every 
citizen, who, in return, would have a right to all 
necessaries of life, and that old age should enjoy rest 
and leisure. Yo a certain degree, this book of Bellamy’s 
has been the foundation of all modern socialistic move- 
ments, and it is deeply interesting to see that in the 
kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu a state founded on these 
principles has once already been in existence and to 
notice the conditions under which its inhabitants lived. 
There was but one point of difference in the fact that 
this state was not built on republican principles, but 
existed under the control of an imperial despotism. 
In any case, we shall see that the fulfilment of such a 
programme, whose fundamental principle is that each 


individual has to perform a definite task for the public 
26 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 27 


good and receives in exchange an equal apportionment 
of food, clothing and protection, brings with it as a 
necessary result the entire abolition of all personal 
liberty and individual freedom of movement. If every 
citizen has certain compulsory work, and if each year 
all the work on the land—as well as all other work, 
whether of head or hand, required by the state—has 
to be fairly redistributed, an exceedingly accurate 
control of the population is absolutely indispensable. 
There was, of course, no central registration office of the 
inhabitants, nor any system of police districts in the 
Inca kingdom, but they made use of other expedients. 

A “ Tshuncacamayoc,”’ or government controller, was 
set over every group of ten families, and ‘similarly a 
“ Curacuna”’ over every group of one hundred, or 
sometimes even of fifty only. 

Families to the number of one to five thousand were 
under a ‘“‘ Curaca,”’ ten thousand under a “‘ Hunu”’ and 
lastly forty thousand families made up a province under 
the oversight of an ‘‘ Apfocone.”’ 

Each of the sub-officers had to render account of his 
stewardship in the first place to his own superior officer, 
but the chief official, the afocone, went several times 
yearly to Cuzco to give his report in person to the 
Emperor. This official had also the control of the law 
proceedings, whilst the lower officers, too, were permitted 
to punish trivial offences, always, of course, with the 
proviso that every case of punishment was reported 
to their own chief. No one lower than a curaca could 
impose the death penalty, and even he had to get the 
sentence confirmed by a hunu. 

Here, then, we have a complete military organization 


28 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


transferred to civil life, the tshuncacamayoc corre- 
sponding to a lieutenant, the curacuna to a captain, the 
curaca to a major, the hunu to a colonel, the apocone to 
a general, with this difference only, that a tshuncacamaya, 
for example, never advanced to a curacuna, but all his 
life kept his original rank, and that the different offices, 
as a rule, descended from father to son, but only, it 
is true, if the son showed himself likely to prove a 
worthy successor, since the Inca always chose the most 
promising of the male descendants irrespective of all 
priority of birth. Moreover, “ tuiricocs ’’ (secret agents) 
travelled throughout the whole year through all the 
provinces, and since they continually changed their 
routes to preserve their incognito they could keep a 
controlling eye on the officers without their knowledge ; 
and again, all unknown even to these agents and quite 
independent of them, there were the favisapacs (secret 
state-dignitaries), who made tours of the most careful 
inspection of the whole district and at the same time 
exercised a secret supervision over the inspecting 
tuiricocs themselves. 

Here again we see an extremely careful and admirably 
conducted organization, which, however, can only be 
compared with a military system, not with modern 
measures of civil control, since each of these officials 
was appointed by the Inca himself and not in any way 
by a community or province, and since each, no matter 
whether his district lay in the capital city of Cuzco 
with its one hundred thousand inhabitants, roughly 
speaking, or in some sparsely populated province, 
had exactly the same number of persons under his 
control. 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 29 


This, then, was the organization of control over the 
whole kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu, with its population 
of ten to twelve millions as estimated by Squier in his 
painstaking investigations, although Bishop Las Casa 
of Chiapa states that the Spaniards massacred forty 
million human beings in Tahuantinsuyu alone. 

The penalties were, as a rule, severe, and especially 
so in the case of negligence on the part of any 
ishuncacamayoc in the official oversight of his ten 
families, whether it was that he had omitted to keep 
an idler to his work or to see that immediate help in 
food, clothing and necessaries from the national stores 
had come to anyone in want through no fault of his 
own but as the result of some epidemic, bad harvest 
or sickness. 

Every year provision was made for an exact census, 
which was rendered much more easy by the fact that 
no inhabitant was ever allowed, except by state com- 
mand, to change his place of residence, not even to 
move into the next village. 

The tshuncacamayoc had to keep very careful records 
(by guipus) of his families, and these were divided into 
twelve different age-periods. The first comprised the 
years from birth to the sixteenth year in seven stages, 
in which the children were at first only a charge to 
their parents, then to a certain degree helpful, and 
lastly took a share of the common work. The eighth 
period consisted of youths from sixteen to twenty 
years, who were not as yet liable to the compulsory 
state-labour but were expected to help in the work 
required of the family, that is, of course, only so far 
as they had not given sign of any special gift which 


30 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


would qualify them for further training in an Amauta 
school. The ninth period included the years from 
twenty to twenty-five, when the young people were 
still only considered helpers, not full workers. 

Twenty-five to fifty was the period of manhood with 
full state obligations. From fifty to sixty years of age 
men were used as overseers or for light work, and all 
who had passed their sixtieth year could enjoy complete 
leisure at the public expense, and all that was asked 
of them was their advice according to their power to 
give it. The ¢shuncacamayoc made his guipus in accor- 
dance with these age-periods, carefully noting every case 
of birth or death; his guipus were handed in every 
month to his superior officer, who passed his own report 
on every three months, so that at any time the chief 
authority in Cuzco had exact information as to the 
state of the population in the whole kingdom. 

Before we pass on to a detailed discussion of the 
method of dividing the land and allotting the com- 
pulsory work, we would like to consider an abstract of 
the interesting code of laws that were originally issued 
by Manco Capac, as reproduced in Brehm’s compre- 
hensive work on the Inca realm, to which the present 
writer owes so many details. 

This code contains twenty-four paragraphs and is 
indeed worthy of note. 

Paragraph 1.—All inhabitants of the state are required 
to use the Quichua language as spoken in Cuzco, at any 
rate in speaking to officials. 

This very first clause shows far-sighted wisdom in 
dealing with a state consisting of a conglomeration of 
many races with tongues as various as the tribes, for 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 31 


without it the remaining enactments could not have 
been promptly put into force. 

Paragraph 2.—In every parish all necessary trades 
shall be undertaken by master craftsmen and journey- 
men; at least every province must be able to make 
everything required by its inhabitants. 

Paragraph 3.—At seed-time and harvest no one— 
from the Inca himself to the lowest of his subjects— 
may refuse to put his hand to any necessary operation 
of the public agricultural work. 

This regulation had its origin in the shrewd recog- 
nition of agriculture as the mainstay of the national 
life, and—just as the Chinese Emperor still does with 
symbolic intention—at the proper seasons the Inca 
himself and the royal princes went with their golden 
tools in solemn state to the sacred field situated in the 
city of Cuzco in order to set the example themselves. 
Even warfare stopped whenever possible at that time 
and the soldiers were sent to their homes on. leave. 
Other occupations, too, came to a standstill, and all 
hands were turned to work the land, the only exceptions 
being the post-runners in the Inca’s service, whose 
business it was unweariedly to carry his orders as 
expressed by guipus from place to place. 

Paragraph 4.—Everyone is required to have accurate 
knowledge of the soil of his own fields and may only 
cultivate such crops as promise the richest possible 
harvest. | 

Here we have a sensible use of the soil to its fullest 
capacity, which was further encouraged in a practical 
way by wise feeding of the land with the guano that 
abounded on their coast. 


32 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Paragraph 5.—Parents are required to observe care- 
fully their children’s aptitudes and inclinations, so that 
the boy may only be trained in a calling where he is 
likely to do good work, even though it may seem 
desirable that, wherever possible, the son should succeed 
to his father’s occupation. 

Certainly an excellent regulation for the increase “of 
efficiency. , 

Paragraph 6,—Barns are to be built in every province 
and filled to such an extent with the surplus of every 
field that there may be provision ready for years of 
bad harvests, war or misfortune. No one—not even 
the Inca himself—may use these stores for any other 
purpose. 

Paragraph 7.—With the same object in view, herds 
of cattle are to be kept so that there may always be a 
supply of suitable beasts for the needs of the community 
and especially for the sick. 

Two excellent laws | 

Paragraph 8.—The cultivated lands are to be divided 
fairly and justly, and should any alteration be necessary, 
as, for example, in war-time, the original fair division 
is to be restored as quickly as possible. 

Paragraph 9 deals with clothing regulations and 
forbids the citizens to wear the style of dress reserved 
for the Inca’s use. 

Paragraph to exhorts to moderation in eating and 
drinking—especially the latter—and those guilty of 


continued intemperance are threatened with exile and 


penal servitude in the mines. 
Paragraphs 11 to 23 deal with the punishment of 
crime. Murder was under every circumstance punish- 


~ 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 33 


able by death; to put a check to the infanticide so 
prevalent amongst the savage Indian tribes the death 
penalty was intensified by stoning and casting down 
from a rock. Murderers of wife or husband were 
quartered. 

Any husband surprising his wife in unfaithfulness 
and killing either of the guilty parties was banished 
for a year, but adultery, rape, fornication, incest and 
procuration were all punishable by death. 

The punishment of theft is very interesting. If the 
culprit had been driven to it by want for which he was 
not to blame, then the punishment fell not on him 
but on the responsible official who had neglected to 
look after him in his misfortune. Such a thief was 
provided with land, clothing, food and all necessaries, 
supplemented by a warning that he would be put to 
death if he stole again. But if the trial showed that 
the value of the property stolen exceeded an anana, 
that the theft was caused not by poverty but by a 
dishonest disposition and that the thief was an idler, 
then his penalty was death. 

Paragraph 24, to conclude with, enacted that there 
should be in every place a “ muichic’”’ (judge), who 
should keep rogues and idlers to their work and impose 
penalties upon them. 

This, then, was the code of the Indian, Manco Capac, 
in which he made provision for support in old age, 
census of population, and food reserves for time of need. 
We may certainly venture to assert that at this period 
of the twelfth century no other country in the known 
world had such a lawgiver. 

Let us now return to our tillers of the soil. All 

3 


34 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


land, every property, every fruit of the earth belonged 
to the Inca, that is, then, to the state. It was only 
the wild fruit-trees and the salt-beds that were at 
everyone’s disposal, but even these must not be 
destroyed. 

Public services were compulsory for all except the 
Inca’s family and newly-married couples, who were 
granted a year of undisturbed honeymoon. Even those 
of high rank and superior officials were expected to 
send their children for some years of service at the 
Court. In spring time the amautas, charged with 
measuring the land, appeared with their measuring 
lines to fulfil their office. In cultivation and harvesting 
all was divided into three equal portions: the first for 
the Sun-God, the second for the Inca and the third 
for the people. 

That seems hard! As though the imperial house and 
the priestly caste laid claim to two-thirds of the 
produce for themselves. In reality, however, the 
temple and the imperial house were the great treasuries 
for hard times. 

If any community was in need, what was more 
natural than that the benevolent deity should open his 
granaries? If these did not suffice, recourse was had 
to the imperial store, which also provided all necessaries 
for the state-officials, the permanent Ma 
and the post-runners. 

The craftsmen and workers in the mines, too, had to 
get clothing and corn for bread. 

Yet everyone, who was expected to cultivate the 
land, only got such a portion of ground as he was able 
to work with ease. Since the father of numerous 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 35 


children naturally finished his allotted work more quickly 
than a man with none, this case had also been foreseen, 
and the first father had to let his children go to his 
neighbour’s help. 

The allotments were not simply measured as to 
equality in area, but great care was taken that each 
worker should receive the same amount of fruitful 
land, and that there should be assigned to everyone 
a piece free of all rates and dues for the use of his own 
household. The amount of work required, moreover, 
was so apportioned that all had enough free time for 
themselves and sufficient rest-periods were provided 
between the work. Nor was anyone allowed to curry 
favour with his overseer by doing more work on the 
land than was his allotted task. 

After the imperial and state-officials had been provided 
for from the royal barns and provision made for the 
priests and necessary distribution had taken place in 
cases of bad harvests or misfortune from the temple 
storehouses, any surplus left when the new stores were 
brought in was divided amongst the poor. | 

But the population was large and a great part of the 
country lay in a rainless zone. Hence means must be 
found for easy transport from the more fruitful regions 
- to those less favoured, and also it was requisite for the 
military transport to be able to cross the country in 
the quickest manner possible. 

So the Incas worked a new miracle, and intersected 
the whole country, even from the coast region near 
Lima towards Chili far south of Lake Titicaca, with a 
network of truly wonderful roads. 

Cieza de Leon, a chronicler who brought out in 


36 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Seville his first description of Peru as early as 1553, 
is full of admiration and frankly confesses that the 
kings of civilized Spain, even with all the means at 
their disposal, would never find it possible to make 
such roads. Even if we might be inclined to think 
this the possible exaggeration of a contemporary who, 
shortly after the fall of the Inca realm, had traversed 
it in all directions, we find his truth vindicated, not 
only by the fact that Alexander von Humboldt per- 
sonally explored these roads now in ruins, thanks to 
European civilization, but that also now, after nearly 
five hundred years of civilized neglect, the traces 
of these gigantic undertakings can still be seen by the 
present-day traveller. 

They were no short roads, but great highways extend- 
ing for six or seven thousand miles and connected by 
a whole network of cross-roads. 

What labour and skill had gone to the making of 
these roads! They extended in an absolutely straight 
line from the sandy wastes of the coast up the most 
precipitous heights amongst the Andes, broke through 
rocky barriers where the makers had to split the stone 
—since they were ignorant of the use of blasting 
materials—by means of fire or axes of stone or bronze 
only, for iron was not known to the Inca people; with 
such tools they also cut galleries in the rock, buttressed 
crumbling mountain sides with gigantic walls of 
hewn stone and made firm roads across treacherous 
swamps. 

There was only one thing they could not manage, 
nor did they attach much importance to it—and that 
was the making of bridges They did not buildarches, 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 37 


but were content with unsteady bridges suspended on 
ropes fastened high upon the water’s edge. 

Necessity is the mother of invention, and since the 
Inca people had no horses, their loads were carried 
not in carts but on the backs of the tame, clever llamas, 
and hanging bridges were quite sufficient for them and 
for foot passengers. 

- Yet throughout their entire length the roads were 
paved with hard flagstones wherever they did not pass 
over rock that had been levelled and smoothed, and 
the state-labourers, charged with the maintenance of 
the road, had to see that no inquisitive blade of grass 
was allowed to show itself between these paving-stones. 

Whenever these roads—nine to eleven yards wide— 
passed through land under cultivation, clay walls were 
built on either side to keep everyone from the fields. 
Along the edges of precipices protection was afforded 
by massive, breast-high stone parapets, and, wherever 
steep heights had to be crossed, the road was converted 
into a broad, easy stairway with wide low steps and 
every now and again level terraces to act as resting- 
places, 

Moreover, these roads were all planted—generally 
with orchard-trees—so that there was shade in hot 
districts and opportunity for travellers to enjoy refresh- 
ing fruits. 

At intervals of two to three miles tiny houses were 
put up for the post-couriers, and at longer intervals 
the so-called ‘‘ tumbas”’ or buildings where the traveller 
found shelter and food from the Inca’s storehouses. 

It is true the travellers were mostly state-officials 
on tours of inspection or amautas on their way to 


38 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


superintend some new building, or, now and again, a 
prince with his suite who was continuing his education 
by a journey across the kingdom with a view to making 
acquaintance with every part, and sometimes even the 
Inca himself. . 

There were no tourists in Tahuantinsuyu, for, as we 
have already seen, every inhabitant was strictly for- 
bidden—except when expressly ordered by the state— 
to leave his place of residence even to go to the next 
village. 

Along these roads, then, came the learned amautas 
to get the land prepared for agriculture, since the 
naturally fertile plains were not nearly sufficient for 
the country’s needs. 

So a mighty system of aqueducts was instituted to 
utilize the water of the few perennial rivers that, in 
their deep beds, tore down the shortest way to the sea. 
Amongst these aqueducts there were some, several 
hundred miles long, whose ruined remains still do their 
work even to the present day. 

Here again we must picture the difficulties of a nation, 
ignorant of electricity and steam-engines as well as of 
dynamite and iron, who yet, high amongst the Andes, 
made great reservoirs where the water was collected 
and let out slowly ; who carried it, where necessary, in 
stone channels across giddy abysses, who bored tunnels 
through the very mountains themselves; and again, 
where the land required it, constructed canals, some of 
them many miles in length. The stone-work of these 
canals was built without mortar, the stones being so 
exactly fitted that there was not a point in any of the 
seams where a drop of water could find an exit. 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 39 


Wherever these water-channels passed cultivated fields, 
locks and outlets were provided, and everyone had to 
be on the spot punctually at fixed hours or days when, 
in accordance with exact regulations, the government 
officials opened the sluices to let the fields drink their 
fill of the life-giving stream. 

Nor was that considered enough. Only a very small 
portion of the ground was level, most of it being in 
precipitous slopes, which had to be made fit for cultiva- 
tion. As soon as a curaca recognized that there was 
no longer sufficient arable land in his district, amautas, 
skilled in building, appeared, and at their advent stone 
blocks were built into walls and the whole slope divided 
up into terraces, each of which had its own system of 
irrigation and its portion of good soil, which sometimes 
had to be brought from a long distance. Often, too, 
clay walls were built up to protect the newly made 
arable land from sand-storms. 

The Inca people had, moreover, an extensive know- 
ledge of the value of different manures, and instruction 
was given in this branch by the amautas. Not only 
was full use made of the ordinary house-refuse, but 
another special fertilizer was the guano from the sea- 
birds on long stretches of the coast. In order not to 
exhaust the supply, special regulations were very wisely 
made, prohibiting the shooting of the birds, or any 
approach to their nesting-places at breeding time, and 
strictly controlling the removal of this valuable material. 

What a striking contrast to the reckless way in which 
“ civilized’ nations love to destroy their sources of 
gain, as, for example, the extermination of buffaloes 
in America, the senseless shooting down of the African 


40 THE WORLD’.OF THE INCAS 


elephant, the waste and extravagance of destroying 
whole forests of valuable timber, as is done even at 
the present day, by burning them down to no other 
purpose than to get a few more square miles of arable 
land. 

The land in Tahuantinsuyu, after such preparation, 
was sown in the same careful way as the rice-fields in 
China and Japan, and it is even said that a fish’s head 
was buried beside each grain of maize to provide it 
with its own special manure. 

But, now, how was it possible for them to achieve 
these tremendous pieces of work, these roads, terraces 
and irrigation systems ? 

Well, only through the system of an equal division 
of compulsory state-labour, which, however, was so 
justly imposed that no one felt it as an overwhelming 
burden, especially as the workers were meantime fed 
and clothed from the national stores. 

It is true the agricultural implements were very 
primitive. There were not even, as a rule, spades to 
take the place of the plough—an implement not used 
owing to the total absence of all draught animals, 
cattle no less than horses—but only wooden stakes 
which were driven into the ground to loosen it and 
rakes with which the sods were broken down. To 
compensate for this deficiency, however, the system of 
irrigation made it possible to keep the fields under 
water for some time before working them. 

Thus, then, bananas and maize, red pepper, beans of 
different kinds, the coca-tree, tuberiferous plants and, 
at a later date, potatoes as well, were grown, and again 
we find definite officials with specially trained knowledge 


——-_ =~ 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 41 


of particular kinds of plants superintending their culti- 
vation, afterwards taking the harvest and giving to the 
growers due praise or blame or even punishment for 
any proof of carelessness in cultivation. 

Another important point is the position of the women 
with regard to man’s work. Even if we judge a nation’s 
degree of civilization by the occupations of the women, 
the Inca people stand at a high level and differ entirely 
from what we find elsewhere amongst uncultivated 
races. Not only amongst American Indians but 
amongst all so-called savages, whether in America, 
Asia or Australia, the chief burden of work rests on the 
shoulders of the woman, whilst the man is either occu- 
pied with hunting or fighting or idly lying on a bear- 
skin. Not so with the Inca people. The men under- 
took all the heavy work and the women only helped 
at seed-time or, above all, at harvest, just as is cus- 
tomary in our own country at such seasons of land- 
work. Not that the woman was idle in consequence. 
In addition to looking after her home, she undertook 
the making of shoes and sandals, spinning and elaborate 
weaving. Professional shoemakers and tailors were 
non-existent, but with the agave and cactus thorns for 
eyeless needles, to which their thread had to be tied, 
the women not only managed to sew their own and the 
men’s clothes, as we can still see in our museums, but 
to darn the artistic and bright patterns of flowers and 
animals woven into their homespuns with such care 
that the rent was barely perceptible. 

In some European countries in the much-vaunted 
“good old days,’ the women always carried about 
their inevitable knitting, and even now many ladies 


AZ THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


take their needlework with them when they go out for 
a frendly cup of tea. And so did the ladies of Tahuan- 
tinsuyu! In the streets they always carried distaff 
and spindle and spun their thread as they walked. 
If they went to drink a cup of coca with a neighbour, 
particularly if one of lower rank—and class distinctions 
were sharply drawn—visited a superior, it was considered 
a special mark of honour if the hostess gave her own 
embroidery to the visitor and allowed her to go on 
with it during her visit. 

In other respects, too, the life of the woman was 
purely domestic, and, as we have gathered from the 
severe punishments meted out to any transgression of 
the marital relations, it was free from all immorality. 

No “ pampayruna”’ (immoral woman) was allowed 
under any circumstances to live within the bounds of 
any town, and if a respectable wife was discovered so 
much as speaking to such a person she herself would 
be put under the same ban, have her head publicly 
shaven, whilst her husband had the right to divorce her.. 

The men of Tahuantinsuyu, however, were by no 
means all of them only workers on the land. As is 
requisite in a country without either imports or exports, 
there were many skilled craftsmen who had dispensation 
from land-labour and who were expected to give a certain 
amount of their work in return for maintenance from 
the public stores. 

If we are to get a true idea of these craftsmen who 
were especially capable in artistic production, that is, 
in the working of precious metals, we must now glance 
at the mining industry of the country. 

Tahuantinsuyu was rich in ores. From the rivers 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 48 


the natives washed the gold that the Inca piled up 
in Cuzco and in the Sun-Temples, whilst silver, lead, 
tin, quicksilver and cinnabar, which was used to make 
rouge, were all obtained as a rule in open workings. 
Shafts were sunk under the vein of ore, filled with 
wood and kindled to get metal sheets or the metal 
was hewn out with bronze picks. The copper, which 
they knew how to produce and which, according to 
Humboldt’s investigations, contained 94 per cent. 
copper and 6 per cent. tin, was of such excellent quality 
that it was nearly as hard as steel and eminently 
adapted for making tools. Alexander von Humboldt 
again bears testimony to their skill in the use of these 
tools even as sculptors, for he found a granite statue 
with a ring that rotated through the lips and yet head 
and ring were chiselled out of the same block of stone ! 
The hardest labour in the mines was performed by 
criminals condemned to penal servitude there, and for 
the rest the state chose married men, who went with 
their wives for three months at a time to the mines 
high in the mountains, where they worked with frequent 
days of rest, whilst their wives cooked for them and 
looked after their comforts. : 
During these three months they were fed from the 
national storehouses and provided with warm clothing, 
whilst their land at home was also cultivated for them 
by state-aid. So these men were quite pleased to go 
to this work, which gave them too a little change. 
The government kept no less careful an eye on hunting 
and the protection of game of all kinds. 
Tahuantinsuyu was not rich in animals; as we have 
seen, there was a total lack of cattle, horses and similar 


AA, THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


animals. Pumas, jaguars, wild cats and bears were 
certainly to be found amongst the mountains, but not 
in very great numbers. The chief wild animals were 
stags, and in addition the “‘ huanacos’’—a strange cross 
between a camel and a sheep—the llama proper and the 
vicuna, particularly prized for its excellent fleece. 
There were strict game laws, and all hunting was strictly 
prohibited for the ordinary citizen, for fear lest it 
should reawaken too strongly the old love of the chase, 
innate in every Indian, and thus keep him from his 
proper work. 

The Inca himself indulged in extensive hunting 
expeditions, which, however, never took place in the 
close times so strictly observed for all game and only 
once every four years in the same neighbourhood, since 
the vicuna’s fleece requires four years to attain its full 
beauty. 

With the exception of beasts of prey, whose skins 
were needed for military dress, nothing was killed in 
these hunting expeditions but serpents and as many 
animals as were needed for the imperial table and the 
old, worn-out llamas and hinds for the general public. 
The other animals were only driven into pens and 
counted before being set free again after their exact 
numbers had been carefully recorded on the quipus. 

As soon as the Inca—or the vice-king as his repre- 
sentative—had finished his hunting expedition in a 
province, the work was taken up by trained huntsmen, 
whose duty it was to shoot down in the general interests 
a number of animals fixed upon previously, and then 
to catch the wild vicunas and shear them before they 
let them go free again, so that their wool might be 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 45 


handed over to skilled weavers and to the maidens of 
the Sun-convents to be used for the Inca’s apparel. 
Bats, too, were used for the same purpose. 

The fishing off the coasts and in the rivers was free 
to everyone, although, even from this, there was a 
certain payment in kind for the Court and for the 
national stores to be made to officials, specially com- 
petent to judge of such matters. 

These government officials received on their side, as 
payment, a certain portion of the fish, with the right 
to exchange this, if they so desired, for other foods 
Thus the fishing carried on by simple hooks and harpoons 
provided a little change in the usual vegetarian fare 
of the hatunrunas. 

Of course a much larger quantity of fish was caught 
along the shore where, at certain times, enormous 
numbers of a kind of sardine were driven like our 
shoals of herring to the coasts. 

The inhabitants of Tahuantinsuyu were neither a 
trading nor seafaring folk, so that ship-building was of 
no account amongst them, and they carried on their 
coast fishing in strange craft still used by the present- 
day Peruvians, and described as follows by Squier in 
his account of the shoals of sardines. 

“We found ourselves surrounded by a swarm of 
Indians, sitting in probably the strangest vessels the 
world has ever seen. They are called ‘ cabalikos,’ or 
‘little horses,’ and consist of one or more bundles of 
rushes or reeds tied together like sheaves of wheat, 
only more tightly, from end to end, thus forming a raft 
about eighteen or twenty feet long. The sharper end 
is bent upwards like a swan’s neck. These craft float 


AG THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


exceedingly well and when not in use are set up on end 
to dry. Asarule they consist of two bundles of reeds 
fastened together, in which case the boatman sits 
astride in the middle and propels his vessel by means 
of a double oar with which he strikes the water alter- 
nately on the right and left side... . 

“We sailed through an almost solid mass of small 
fish that were called sardines all along the coast. They 
were evidently driven towards the land by great, 
devouring enemies in the sea, for the occasional beating 
of their destroyers’ tails testified plainly enough to the 
insatiable nature of their appetite. The little victims 
crowded so closely together that their noses, peeping 
above the surface of the water, gave the ocean the 
appearance of a shining coat of mail. We could get 
them out by thousands in the hollow of our hands. A 
great number had perished in the crush and floated 
about dead in the struggling mass. They filled the 
sea within a circuit of more than a mile along the 
coast, where hundreds of women and children caught 
up the tiny fish with hats, brooms and the front 
of their skirts and tipped them out in heaps upon the 
sand.”’ 

No-doubt the haul was much the same in the days 
of the Incas, when they ate the fish either fresh, salted 
or dried, and used the heads as we have already re- 
counted as food for the growing maize. 

The catching of larger fish was a different and more 
dangerous matter when the fisherman rode out to sea 
on his ‘‘sea-horse’’ of reed-bundles, armed with a 
bronze harpoon on a long cord. 

As soon as he saw his prey, he cast his harpoon with 


——————— x. . 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 47 


great accuracy of aim, played out his line and then 
waited until the fish had finished its death struggles. 
This certainly called for courage and skill, and some- 
what recalls to our minds the Esquimaux cajacs, although 
these are incomparably more seaworthy vessels. 

The wounded fish made the frail bundles of straw 
dance on the water as if in a storm, and when we take 
into account as well the wild surf of the Peruvian coast, 
the rider certainly gave proof of his calm intrepidity 
when he managed to keep his balance on the bundle 
of straw in the wild measure as set by the dying fish 
and did not seek a headlong death in the foaming surf, 
above which vultures were already hovering, ready to 
tear the dead to pieces and eat their flesh. 

We find here additional confirmation of the fact that 
the dwellers of Tahuantinsuyu were not seafarers, for 
they certainly could not have ventured out any further 
seawards on their straw rafts. 

They built, in addition to these, only clumsy boats 
for use on the river estuaries. Roving into unknown 
regions or venturing on over-sea voyages had no attrac- 
tions for a nation so closely bound by home ties that 
they did not venture to make an excursion to the next 
village without government permission. And why 
‘should it? Their policy was a civilization from within, 
not intercourse with foreign lands which could not be 
at once and completely absorbed into their own realm 
and were therefore a possible source of danger. 

It is from this point of view that we must also 
consider the enlargement of their kingdom and their 
system of colonization. 

Under the rule of the Incas, thanks to the strict public 


48 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


health regulations, constant work, abolition of want in 
any form and, above all, freedom from the petty wars 
that, in earlier times, had exterminated different tribes, 
the death-rate fell very considerably, whilst the birth- 
rate increased, and also there was a steady decrease 
in infant mortality as a result of the severe penalties 
imposed for infanticide and of the more hygienic con- 
ditions of living, so that, from time to time, the borders 
of the land grew too narrow and necessity arose to 
enlarge the kingdom by the addition of one of the less 
thickly populated neighbouring districts. Moreover, 
they were surrounded in many parts by savage cannibal 
tribes who could not be looked upon as desirable 
neighbours. 

At such times, then, the Sun-God, by his high priest 
the Villjac Vmu, used to announce to the Inca that it 
was the Divine Will that the illustrious Inca should 
bestow upon such or such a neighbouring people the 
blessings of civilization and take it into union with 
Tahuantinsuyu. | 

An Inca never waged war against an unwarned 
enemy. To begin with, ambassadors richly laden with 
gifts were sent over many times to explain to the neigh- 
bouring state how much better it would be for them 
to bow to the Inca’s mild rule, and it was only after 
the failure of these embassies that war was declared 
and mobilization took place at a time when neither 
seed-time nor harvest was imminent. | 

We will speak later on of the calling-up of the troops 
and the conduct of the war as a whole, and now turn 
our attention to the way in which the victorious Inca 
—for victorious he always was, could not indeed fail 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 49 


to be with his superior weapons and tactical skill— 
treated those whom he conquered. 

A number of their fighting men were taken, not as 
prisoners but almost more as visitors, to Cuzco to 
witness the Inca’s triumphal procession on his return 
to the capital. As soon as the victory had been won, 
the other prisoners received not only their liberty but 
all their personal belongings as well, whilst even the 
most trivial looting was forbidden under pain of severest 
penalties to every Inca soldier. 

“How could you rob those who will soon be your 
brothers ? ” 

The Inca did not wish either to have in his new 
territory unwilling subjects or suppressed enemies, but 
instead affectionate sons of the empire. 

Even whilst the war was in progress the storehouses 
on the frontier were more than usually well filled, and, 
hostilities once over, mighty loads were taken over into 
the new province. 

First of all, the naked subjects were provided with 
the usual, cleanly, national dress and, simultaneously 
with this, abundant provisions were distributed in those 
districts that had been the greatest sufferers from the 
war and its inevitable devastation. At the same time 
amautas flocked into the district close on the heels of 
the soldiers, to instruct the new brothers in the arts 
of agriculture and to teach the women feminine 
occupations. 

Architects also plotted out roads, chose suitable sites 
for villages, started an irrigation system, decided on 
the size and distribution of the fields, whilst state- 
officials travelled through the country, making a census 

4 


50 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


of the people, counting and noting in their quipus 
animals, trees, rivers, lakes, springs, mineral wealth, 
salt-beds, observing what kinds of fruit would succeed 
best there and gently but firmly bringing the savage 
inhabitants into a state of civilization by continually 
endeavouring to let the new citizens themselves realize 
the improvement in their condition. 

Then, when their chiefs, headmen and warriors, over- 
powered with the wonders and the splendid feasts in 
Cuzco, laden with rich presents, and each as far as 
possible reinstated in his office and dignity, returned 
home after an absence of several months—for an effort 
was made to keep them as long as that—they could 
scarcely believe their own eyes. 

The naked savages who had lived in wretched tree- 
huts were now housed in practical little cottages built 
of adobe bricks surrounded by newly planted fields, 
already giving promise of their first harvest, whilst 
thousands of busy hands under the amautas’ expert 
guidance were throwing up terraces, making water- 
channels, levelling roads, and the spectres of bad 
harvests, famine, want had disappeared. 

Conquest by force—yes, but force that, at once, 
brought about good results for the conquered. 

The Incas were, too, equally skilful in the conversion 
of the new provinces to the worship of the Sun-God. 
It is true they at once put up Sun-God temples for 
that milder form of worship which almost entirely 
dispensed with any human sacrifice, but—contrary to 
the custom of Christian fanatics—the images of the 
old gods were not pulled down, destroyed and burnt, 
but treated as a kind of subordinate gods to Inti and 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 51 


carried with all honour to Cuzco, where they were 
with due solemnity buried, so to speak, in a “‘ Temple 
of the Ancient Gods.” 

Each tribe retained but one thing—their distinctive 
headwear, and thus it was possible to tell at once from 
their hats from what district each had originally come. 

The Inca had another method of dealing with difficult 
tribes who had hitherto shown special enmity and who 
were possibly dangerous cannibals such as lived in 
many of the frontier districts. He transferred a con- 
siderable part of the whole tribe into the midst of the 
Inca kingdom, but not with any cruelty, for families 
were never torn asunder and inhabitants thus trans- 
ferred were settled in districts resembling, as far as 
possible in climate and soil, those which they had to 
leave. 

In these new homes they were put on an equal footing 
with the other inhabitants of the district, and, as a 
natural consequence, their entire amalgamation was 
very soon complete. Ten or twelve thousand families 
from Tahuantinsuyu took their vacant places in the 
new provinces, where they acted, to a certain extent, 
as overseers. | 

This move out of the homeland, too, was effected in 
such a way as to give pleasure to those concerned. 
They received permission to wear superior clothes, had 
larger and better portions of land assigned to them for 
their own use—a concession easily made in the more 
sparsely populated land—were absolved from taxes and 
tithes for some years, and were persuaded that their 
transference was a special mark of the Inca’s confidence. 

The lower officials, especially the tshuncacamayoes, 


52 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


were chosen from their ranks; they were the teachers 
of trades and handicrafts, and, above all, they acted as 
stimulating examples to others by their contentment 
and sense of gratitude to the Inca. 

The monarch himself used to make frequent journeys 
through the conquered provinces to give audience to 
all needing help and to win popularity. 

In this way, then, a few years sufficed in most cases 
to transform the new district into a contented province 
in complete harmony with the rest of the realm whose 
inhabitants were quite aware that they were better off 
under Inca rule than before, so that it was no unusual 
occurrence for other more distant neighbours to come 
of their own accord and beg to be taken under the 
Inca dominion. ) 

Even the Spaniards as they penetrated as conquerors 
into regions beyond the Inca rule said: ‘°* If the Incas 
had got as far as this, how different everything would 
look.’’ 

And Cieza de Leon concedes as follows : 

“*We cannot but deeply regret that we Christians 
can do nothing but devastate, whilst the Incas, whom 
we look upon as savage heretics, were able to institute 
such good order in their realm and to maintain such 
wise government. For wherever Spanish Christians 
entered as conquerors or discoverers, they turned a 
prosperous land into a desert, until it looked as if it had 
been seared by the flames of a consuming fire.”’ 

We shall see later what became of the prosperous 
land under Spanish-Christian colonization, but now, 
as the conclusion of this section, we will consider the 
usual course of life of the hatunrunas, the ordinary 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 53 


citizens of the Inca kingdom, and what measure of 
content and happiness was felt by the members of this 
socialistic state. 

We will endeavour as far as possible to draw a true 
picture of their family life. 

We have already spoken of the child’s birth and 
earliest years In connection with the education of the 
Crown Prince. 

The dwelling-houses of the hatunrunas were of the 
simplest type, small buildings of adobe bricks—those 
bricks of compressed clay and mud that are ‘still a 
favourite building material in South and Central 
America. They were thatched with straw and the 
interior was only very occasionally divided into two 
rooms by a partition wall; since they had no windows, 
their only source of light was the doorway. Such was 
the hatunruna’s home, but even so he was much better 
off than in his former home of palm leaves. 

A couple of rough wooden chairs, a table, a clay fire- 
place with some cooking-pots, a heap of leaves for a 
bed, and sometimes a hammock as well, was the sum 
total of his furniture. But everything was clean, for 
the stern tshuncacamayoc saw to that in the interests 
of public health. 

As to meals, both gentle and simple took but two a 
day, one early in the forenoon, the other just at 
sundown. 

Even if the hatunruna’s table was not spread with the 
superabundance to be found in wealthy houses in Cuzco 
or in the princely dwellings of provincial governors, 
at any rate he never went hungry. Maize was the 
people’s staple food, and although the “‘ tanta ’”’ (every- 


54 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


day bread) was made from meal, coarsely ground on 
stones, the women were skilful in sifting the meal 
through woollen bags and using this finer flour to 
prepare the more delicate holiday bread called 
‘“ huminta.”’ For the Inca himself, the virgins of the 
Sun-convent learnt how to make the light white 
“ zgawku’’ which graced his table in the shape of crisp 
new loaves. 

A popular beverage was “‘ ¢shitsha,” an intoxicating 
drink made from maize, a better quality of which was 
to be found in “ sora.’’ They were also very fond of 
chewing the stimulating leaves of the coca-tree, highly 
valued by us too as the source of cocaine, so largely 
used in medicine—although, be it said, this pleasure 
was supposed to be an exclusive privilege of the Inca’s. 

They all ate with spoons which, on the hatunruna’s 
table, were made from coconut shells, whilst his betters 
used those of gold or bronze and table-napkins as well. 

The hatunruna was, it must be confessed, by no 
means averse to a little alcoholic comfort ; hence the 
strict laws against drunkenness, although a lenient eye 
was cast upon any little over-indulgence in the old 
gentleman who was already enjoying his state-pension. 
There were, too, frequent feasts for all, since the Inca 
knew very well that nothing helps on work so much as 
frequent holidays to break the monotony of the week. 
Consequently superior officials were expected on certain 
days to invite their subordinates to a festive meal, 
just as the ¢shuncacamayoc did for his families. This 
common meal did more than anything to strengthen 
the feeling of fellowship and took the sting out of much 
that might seem hard. 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 55 


Such feasts provided, too, opportunities for dancing, 
in which, however, none but the men ever took part ; 
indeed every district had its special dance—consisting 
generally more or less of elaborate rhythmical singing 
movements—and was expected to practise this dance 
and to perform it on those occasions when the Inca 
paid a visit to the province. On especially important 
feast-times in Cuzco the best dancers from all parts of 
the realm were summoned by royal request to the 
capital to take part in a kind of dancing competition. 
The women were always pleased to act as spectators at 
these dances. 

About the age of three and twenty, before they had 
attained full adult responsibility as regarded national 
labour, the young men were expected to marry. In 
many cases they did so from choice, the bridegroom 
paying his father-in-law a price for his bride in accor- 
dance with his means, a few jars of éshitsha or a 
couple of llamas. But if the young man could not 
bring the matter to a successful issue by his own unaided. 
efforts, either because of the father-in-law’s obduracy, 
his own bashfulness or because he was too confirmed 
in bachelor ways to find a wife to his taste, the curaca 
stepped in and collected on a certain day—as described 
by Fray Christobal de Castro—all the marriageable 
young people to see, no doubt with due regard to any 
feeling of mutual affinity, that the couples were married 
to order. | 

Marriage and the blessing of legitimate children was 
part of the Inca’s scheme of government, even if only 
as the best guarantee of public morality. 

It was only the Inca who had concubines—as the 


56 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


consequence of his ex-officio marriage with his sister— 
and also the royal princes. 

Here, too,.we must diverge to treat in more detail 
an institution of which we have already made passing 
mention—the “ Aclliahuazs’’ or Convent of the Virgins 
of the Sun-God. 

Every year a number of young girls who gave promise 
of exceptional beauty were chosen throughout the land 
by officials appointed for this purpose, to become 
members of the Sun-convent. They were as a rule 
chosen in earliest childhood as a guarantee of unsullied 
purity, but, occasionally, older girls were also selected 
if specially beautiful and with a spotless reputation. 

The convent of the Acllias in Cuzco rivalled in 
splendour the Inca’s palace. Three thousand chosen 
maidens were assembled there under the superintendence 
of a royal princess acting as a kind of abbess, and, 
guarded by eunuchs, received the most careful training 
and education in preparation for their future vocation. 

They had to pass several tests before they were 
accepted as acilias, but then they received economic 
independence from the state, each her own special 
woman attendant, the “ china.’ Their heads were then 
shaven and, clothed in a dark dress and veil, they 
again served a novitiate in which they received instruc- 
tion from the older women, the “‘ mamacunas’”’ in 
spinning and weaving the Inca’s costly garments, in 
preparing food for the royal table, and in many other 
arts. They were then, at last, considered worthy to 
don the white robe and golden wreath of a “ gorin- 
huintsha.”’ 


_ Those who were especially honoured devoted them- 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 57 


selves to the service of the temples of the Sun-God 
and of the Moon-Goddess Quilla, whilst the others 
attended to the Inca’s wants and at the great festivals 
tasted and presented the golden dishes to him with 
their own hands. 

Such a virgin’s person was sacred, and when carried 
in her litter through the city was shown the reverence 
given to priests. The most agonizing death awaited 
any who should molest a Sun-Virgin, whilst any acllia 
who left the path of virtue was walled up alive. No 
man was permitted to enter the convent, even the 
Inca himself only once in his lifetime. 

The seduction of a Sun-Virgin is the tragic theme of 
the Inca drama ‘‘ Ollanta,”’ which is still extant and which 
we will consider later on. 

Yet the convent was not an eternal prison. The 
highly esteemed concubines of the royal house were 
chosen from among the Sun-Virgins, and many a one 
left the convent life to become the wife of a prince, to 
whom she was given by the Inca himself as a mark of 
special honour. 

But now let us return to the hatunruna’s marriage. 
This was, as we have seen, concluded by the curaca, 
i.e. then, by a superior, acting in his capacity of state- 
official, and the union was noted in the state quipus. 

It was now incumbent upon all the other inhabitants 
of the village to build the newly-married couple a 
house from materials provided by the state, as were 
also all necessary articles of furniture. 

Happy fathers in Tahuantinsuyu with marriageable 


daughters whose dowry never gave them a moment’s 
anxious thought ! | 


58 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Before we pass from the marriage to the funeral 
ceremonies, we will quote an utterance concerning the 
education of the children which Tupac Yupanqui, the 
eleventh Inca, is said to have made: 

“Jt is advisable to forbid sons of a working man to 
occupy themselves with the sciences, for if they do 
they will, in consequence, become proud and haughty 
and be ashamed of their own parents. They would, 
moreover, despise their calling, and men like that 
can never be of any use to the state. So the mechanic 
must stick to his trade and those who are born in the 
ruling class must learn to order and command.” 

It is evident that the idea of an open road for the 
most capable found no acceptance in the kingdom of 
Tahuantinsuyu. On the contrary, it was feared that 
every expression of personal force of will, every diver- 
gence from the accustomed groove, might prove a 
danger to the carefully constructed state-mechanism. 

The Inca people bestowed special care on the burial 
of their dead, and even the hatunruna made provision 
in his lifetime that his body should afterwards be 
thoroughly embalmed and find its last resting-place in 
some high rocky cave. 

Squier found a larger family grave, a kind of earth 
burial-place,when investigating the ruins of Pachacamac. 
No fewer than five corpses were found together in this 
square brick tomb: a man, a woman, a girl of about 
fourteen and two smaller children. 

Possibly they had met with a common death through 
some accident. The mummies, under an outer covering 
of sedge, were wrappéd up in fine woollen cloths and 
carefully preserved. Amongst many other things the 


BELLAMY’S DREAM OF THE FUTURE 59 


woman had a distaff and spindle, the girl’s body was in 
a sitting position on a work-basket of plaited rush 
that, more or less, cast a light on her whole life; there 
were samples of unskilled embroidery which, no doubt, 
was the work of her early childhood, knitting with 
dropped stitches and a child’s tiny spindle, side by 
side with specimens of skilful work, accomplished as 
she began to leave childhood behind; strips of cloth 
with gay borders to show her art in weaving, all kinds 
of ornaments, amongst which the most valuable was 
a delicate golden butterfly which broke to atoms as 
Squier touched it. 

The hair was disposed round the head in neat plaits 
over which a white handkerchief was fastened by 
silver pins, the mummy arm wore a silver bracelet, and 
between the feet lay the dried body of an Amazon 
parrot which had probably been the dead girl’s pet! 

What love had been expended on this tomb! Even 
the smaller boy had his sling and his plaything by 
his side. 

Does not this care of their dead bear testimony to 
the high stage reached by this nation ? 

_ Were the Inca people happy ? 

In a certain way, assuredly. They were - obedient 
children under their emperor’s kind rule. 

They were infinitely better off in many ways than 
their savage neighbours ; they knew neither want nor 
hunger and shared in much that was good and beautiful. 
And yet, in common with all members of any state 
where communism is carried to such extremes, they 
lacked one thing, although quite unconsciously, because 
they had so long forgotten its possession, and that 


60 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


one thing was every kind of personal liberty in act or 
movement. 

We have seen that personal property was unknown 
amongst them, that they were tied to their birthplace, 
that they must follow the calling for which their 
“ guardian ’’ considered them suitable, and that they 
could never get out of their own caste. Each one was 
nothing but a wheel in the great, highly finished mechanism 
of the state-machine, although it is true this great central 
wheel of government revolved in care for all the citizens of 
the kingdom. 

No ambition could help them on, no individual ability 
lift them above their environment. But, in exchange 
for this, they enjoyed a life free from all want and a 
calm and peaceful old age. 

A state that was both possible and admirable wheal 
as in the case of Tahuantinsuyu, it developed in this 
way for the benefit of unsophisticated savages. But 
whether such a state would be possible or is really an 
ideal to be desired, whether indeed it could ever be 
realized in our times amongst people who have learnt 
to think for themselves and wish for more individual 
scope than to be only a wheel in a great machine that 
pays them with food and clothing, that indeed is a 
different question and very much to be doubted. 


‘CHAPTER Til 


THE INCA PEOPLE AS ARCHITECTS, 
ARTISTS, PHYSICIANS 


ET us for the moment imagine we too are divine 

ambassadors of the sacred Inti and descend from 
the Pass of Huillcanota down into the Cuzco valley, 
for nowhere can we get a better idea of the Incas’ 
architecture and their work as artists and scholars 
than by mingling in the crowd of visitors at the 
Raymi, the most important festival in the worship of 
the Sun-God. 

It is true we have no golden staff to cast into the 
ground but, instead, we have horses that will carry us 
more quickly through the ravine which, in parts, is 
extraordinarily narrow and wild. We will not follow 
the Huillcanota valley quite as far as the junction of 
the Hutanay with the Huillcanota, but cut off the last 
part by following an old Inca road over the mountain 
pass. 

On our way we pass a mysterious spot, the almost 
circular lake encircled with rushes, close by the little 
village of Urcos, probably a very ancient crater with 
sloping sides sinking in the centre to an incredible 


depth. In itself the little mountain lake would not 
61 


62 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


be worthy of note, for many like it are hidden amongst 
the rocky fastnesses of the Andes, were it not for the 
secret it holds in its depths. 

At the birth of Huascar, the first-born son of Huayna 
Capac, the last of the great Incas, the happy father 
had a golden chain made 700 feet long, with which 
he encircled the whole citadel. When, later on, the 
Spaniards broke into the kingdom, this chain was 
sunk into the Lake Urcos where, a veritable Nibelung - 
treasure in Peru, it still awaits its resurrection. 

Even in the time of the conquistadores, enterprising 
treasure-seekers sought by means of a shaft driven 
obliquely from a lower level into the lake to divert 
its waters, but their hopes were shattered by the 
hardness of the stone and the attempt was not repeated. 
There must, moreover, be still many precious gold 
treasures lying in mountain lakes, swamps and fields 
under cultivation at an earlier date, at least if we may 
believe Cieza de Leon, who was told by an Inca 
descendant that all the gold carried off as Spanish 
- booty was but a drop in the ocean compared with the 
amount dropped, before their conquest, into lakes and 
rivers or buried in the ground. 

We will now make the acquaintance of Cuzco, the 
capital, and, in so doing, follow the description given 
by W. E. Middendorf, who is second to none in his 
knowledge of Peru. 

Above the city towers the rock Saxuahuaman, upon 
which Inca Yupanqui the Great built the formidable 
fortress that protects the town, and Saxuahuaman, in 
its turn, is overshadowed by the mountain Rodadero, 
whose acquaintance we have still to make, 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 63 


The oldest part of the town lay at the foot of 
Saxuahuaman, where, as tradition runs, Manco Capac’s 
house was built on a terrace. This platform, on which 
stands the little church of San Christobal and which 
offers an extensive view of the whole town, was called 
Collcampata, the name it still bears. The houses below 
Collcampata as far as the principal square of Haucaypata 
were called Hanan Cuzco, the upper town, whilst the 
part extending southwards bore the name of Hurin 
Cuzco, the lower town; the division between the 
upper and lower town was formed by the military road 
leading eastward to Antisuyu. 

The districts lying on this eastern side were : 


I. Cantut Pata, the flower terrace, so called from the 
beautiful, red, carnation-like blossoms of the “ cantut,”’ 
a native plant of the Inca land. 

2. Puma-Curcu, the lion-house, since this was the 
site of the cages in which the pumas were kept. 

3. Toco-Cachi, the salt-bed, east of the Haucaypata 
square. 

4. Munai-Senka, the pretty nose, somewhat farther 
south-east. 

5. Rima-Pampa, the south-eastern quarter, where 
there is a square of the same name and where the road 
from Huillcanota enters the city. 

6. Pumap-Chupan, the lion’s tail, the acute angle 
formed by the rivers Huatanay and Tullumaye. The 
Temple was situated in this district. 


The districts to the west were in the following order : 


1. Huaca-Punka, the idols’ gate, lying in the valley 
of the Huatanay along the western foot of Saxuahuaman, 


64 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


. Carmonca, the shoulder-blade. 

. Killi-Pata, the narrow terrace. 

. Pichu, the ankle. 

. Chaquill-chaca, the seaweed bridge. 

. Kaya-Gachi, the district between the Chunchull- 
mayo river and the Huatanay. 


Hum & WD N 


These districts lay round the centre of the city, which 
was built in the form of a triangle with Saxuahuaman 
for base and the rivers Huatanay and Tullumayo on 
either side. On the western side, almost in the middle 
of the town, lay the great Haucaypata Square, where 
the festivals were held. 

All the chief buildings of the city, the bad palaces, 
the Sun-Temple, the Convent of the Sun-Virgins, as well 
as most of the dwellings of the nobility—those of royal 
blood—stood in the triangular Pumap-Chupan, men- 
tioned above. 

As we pass through the streets to-day we notice on 
all sides old walls distinguished from buildings of more 
recent date by their characteristic method of fitting 
the stones. If we try to picture these old Inca houses 
to ourselves we are forced to own that they must have 
had a gloomy aspect. What blinded the Spaniards’ 
eyes was doubtless the mural decorations in gold and 
silver and the multitude of household objects made in 
precious metals, for the houses themselves were massive 
and low, but one story high, square in shape, with 
thatched roofs in the form of pyramids. | 

When the Inca kingdom stood at its zenith, their 
skill in stone-work continually increased until it reached 
such a pitch in fitting the edges of the blocks that 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 65 


in many places it is literally impossible to get even the 
blade of a knife into the lines of junction. Yet, never- 
theless, they were not ignorant of mortar, a binding 
material of mud or clay, and certain archeologists 
affirm that this was often mixed with silver alloy, which 
was, of course, enough to induce the Spaniards, in their 
greed, to break down entire buildings. 

Amongst the buildings of ancient Cuzco the foremost 
was the Sun-Temple, both on account of the high 
object for which it existed as well as for the magnificence 
of its appointments and for the treasures it contained. 

The arrangement of the different parts of the temple 
building seems, in the main, to have been that of an 
ordinary dwelling on a larger scale. The rooms and 
halls opened without communication doors on to an 
inner court, and the chief hall of the Temple was the 
prototype of the nave of present-day Dominican 
churches. 

The walls of this hall were covered from top to 
bottom with plates of gold; at the eastern end there 
was a representation of the sun with solid golden rays 

encircled with a frame of costly gems, whilst along the 
side walls were ranged the golden thrones on which sat 
the mummified bodies of former kings. 

Immediately adjoining the Sun-Temple was the Chapel 
of the Moon-Goddess Quilla. The decoration here was 
of silver; one silver plate was engraved with a human 
face, the representation of the goddess, and along these 

» walls the mummies of the Incas’ royal spouses sat, 
each upon her silver throne. 

Next to this hall was the chapel dedicated to the 
Morning Star, adjoining this the chapel of Thunder 

5 


66 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


and Lightning, and lastly the chapel of the Rainbow, 
that set forth the great Inti, appeased after his wrath 
in storm and tempest. 

All the Temple doors were overlaid with gold or silver, 
and a strip of gold as thick as a man’s finger, twice as 
broad as his hand and surmounted by a golden cornice, 
encircled the entire building. 

In one of the Temple courts lay the celebrated 
Golden Garden, the greatest marvel of Cuzco; indeed, 
only the great abundance of the stores of gold could 
have suggested such a dream of fairy-land, with its 
golden sacred columns, golden figures of animals, silver 
bushes and trees whose delicate branches trembled in 
the breeze, heads of maize with silver leaves and stalks 
bearing golden grain, bearded with the most delicate 
silver filaments ; on the branches golden birds; cock- 
chafers and butterflies with wings of sparkling gems 
seemed to fly in the air, whilst lizards, serpents, snails 
and little mammals, all made in gold or silver with 
eyes of precious stones, crept along the ground. Won- 
derful, fantastic flowers adorned the beds, and amidst 
all this artificial magnificence rose the natural beauty 
of real shrubs kept moist by the water flowing in golden 
pipes to basins of the same precious metal. 

What must the wild, savage chiefs have thought 
when the victorious Inca allowed them to look into 
this world of marvels ! 

Certainly not what occurred to the mind of the 
civilized Spaniard, who, utterly devoid of any feeling 
for works of art, had them broken to pieces and melted 
down for easier transport, so that scarcely any specimens 
are left of the work of these gold- and silver-smiths. 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 67 


The temple and the convent of the Sun-Virgins were 
surrounded by a large number of royal palaces, for 
every Inca liked to put up a new one for himself, 
whilst adjoining the palace of the sixth ruler, the 
learned Inca Roca, were the Yachaihuazi (the houses 
of Science), those extensive buildings occupied by the 
amautas, whose duty it was to preserve, promote and 
hand on the knowledge acquired by the Inca people. 

Further out lay the citizens’ houses—simple buildings 
of adobe bricks—where the different trades were grouped 
together, another of the many points of similarity with 
Oriental customs, no less than their monotonous, gloomy 
outside walls, unbroken by any windows; thus there 
was a quarter of the weavers, another of the tanners, 
metal-workers, armourers, potters, or whatever other 
craftsmen there might be. 

Of these houses there is of course little or nothing 
left, for they were not built of massive blocks of stone 
but only of bricks, and, in the course of centuries, have 
given place to fresh buildings. 

About 845 feet above the Haucaypata Square rises 
the Saxuahuaman Rock, still crowned with gigantic 
ruins of the fortifications that protected the Inca 
capital. 

This fortress represented the work of sixty years 
and, according to Cieza de Leon, more than twenty 
thousand men, drawn from all parts of the kingdom, 
took part in its erection. Even from the highest streets 
of the city, the road up to the fortress is very steep, 
in parts even up flights of steps. Once up, there is a 
wonderful view of Cuzco and the river triangle, sur- 
rounded by a panorama of mountain, lies like a map 


68 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


at our feet. Even on the precipitous face of the rock 
they built a high smooth wall which put all climbing 
up out of the question. On the city side there was a 
massive stone rampart in three tiers one above the 
other, the lowest tier being thirty-two feet broad and 
more than three feet in height. Three gates led through 
these ramparts on to the highest level of the fortress. 
The uppermost wall was surmounted by two square 
and one round tower, the latter supplied with a system 
of purest spring water, the direction of the pipes being 
known only by the Inca himself and his confidential 
servants. This round tower was to serve as a place 
of refuge for the Inca in times of danger, and the very 
heart of the solid rock had been pierced to form a 
labyrinth of underground chambers, casemates and 
passages. The ground inside the fortress was not flat 
but a gently rising hill, now overgrown with grass. 
What an incredible, incomprehensible amount of work 
was needed for the building of this mighty fortress. 
Even if the “‘ weary stone ”’ tale told by Garzilazo of a 
massive block covered with ornamentation which, 
according to Middendorf, would need more than twenty 
thousand horses to move it and which was dragged 
down by ropes from the distant mountains until it 
was “weary ’”’ and came to a full stop, is probably a 
myth, yet the fact remains that many of the rocks 
were almost six yards high, three broad and two and a 
half in thickness; moreover, they had not been hewn 
from the chalky Saxuahuaman rock itself, but were of 
the same substance as the distant mountain peaks, 
whence they had doubtless been fetched. How was it 
possible to move these gigantic blocks, to bring them 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 69 


down from such a distance, and to test their size so 
often until they were hewn with such exactitude as to 
form the seamless walls that can still be seen at the 
present day ? 

We know nothing of the technical means invented by 
the amautas to achieve these ends, but they must have 
been excellent and calculated to the utmost nicety, 
although not a trace of them has been handed down 
to us. How was it possible, for instance, to lift a 
mighty slab of stone and to put it into place as the 
roof of a dwelling ? 

What kind of bottle-jacks did they contrive to draw 
those stone blocks up the steep boundary wall of the 
fortress and to fit them together with the most minute 
exactitude ? 

Tradition certainly says that it was no infrequent 
occurrence for one of the blocks to get loose and crush 
hundreds of workmen in its fall. Yet the work, as a 
whole, reached completion and stands to-day before 
our eyes, stupendous and strong enough to have escaped 
even the shocks of mighty earthquakes. 

There is no doubt that this earthquake peril and also 
the scarcity of wood in the Inca land with its treeless 
mountain sides give us the explanation of the plain, 
solid, stone walls and of the long, low style of the Inca 
buildings. 

On the other side towards the mountains, where the 
fortress was especially well protected, it was bounded 
by a trough-like depression, about one hundred and 
sixty yards broad, between it and the mountain heights. 
In the time of the Incas this plain was the scene of the 
great military reviews. In front of the actual chain 


70 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


of mountains there lies a group of volcanic peaks of a 
distinctly curious formation. It looks, so Middendorf 
says, as if a semi-firm, dough-like mass had burst 
through the chalky mountains, had been pressed through 
jagged openings so that its surface had remained 
indented with numberless narrow channels. These 
channels were used by the young as slides, and hence 
the name ‘ Rodaderos,’”’ i.e. “‘ places to roll or slide 
down.’”’ There are many blocks and masses of rock 
lying in this plain, all differing in shape, but the most 
interesting is one of conical form rising eighty feet 
from the surface of the sand, midway between the 
fortress and the mountains opposite Saxuahuaman, to 
about the same height as the hill on which the fortifica- 
tion stood. Two rows of broad steps are hewn in the 
rock and also a stone seat resembling a throne ; behind 
and beside this there are niches, seats and steps cut in 
the stone. 

It was here the Inca came to view the reviews, and a 
grand sight it must have been when the steps and seats 
of the vodadero were all filled with the mightiest of 
the realm, whilst the Inca, glorious in his royal apparel, 
with his head protected by a hat—almost as large as 
an umbrella—of the brightest plumes, looked down 
from his gigantic stone throne on to the gay show 
made by the combatants in their fantastic suits of 
armour. Every point of vantage in the surrounding 
rocks and walls was filled by crowds of spectators from 
Cuzco. Such a parade ground and such a position 
from which to view the manceuvres have seldom fallen 
to the lot of any ruler. 

But above the city towered the sacred Mount Huano- 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 71 


cauri, into whose summit Manco Capac’s golden staff 
had disappeared, now the site of a Sun-God sanctuary, 
and the point from which the youths—the royal heir 
amongst them—on their testing-day started on their 
race to Cuzco. 

Now that we have gained some kind of mental idea of 
Cuzco, we will pay it a visit at the time of its highest 
festival. 

Every road is crowded with people flocking from the 
villages and neighbouring districts to the capital ; many 
a time these peasant folk have to pause to make way 
for their betters, the viceroys, the apocones and curacas, 
going in their costly litters to the royal residence, yet 
on they press quietly and soberly indeed, yet filled 
with a solemn feeling of festivity, and all on foot, for 
riding or driving was unknown amongst them. 

The city, too, lay in solemn quiet ; no trace of smoke 
was to be seen from a single house or sacrificial altar, 
for the three-day fast that preceded the great Raymt 
feast had already begun. 

All business is at a standstill ; the Emperor is praying 
in the Sun-God’s Temple; no one may break his fast, 
no husband embrace his wife. 

Yet all hands are busy. In the Temple-courts 
servants are preparing the approaching feast; the 
sacred virgins of the sun—and there are more than two 
thousand of them in the aclliahuazi—are making the 
holy feast bread (zanku) and whatever else is needed © 
for the imperial table. And in every other house to-day 
it is the young girls who are at work, for as long as the 
Raymi feast lasts the faithful may only eat food pre- 
pared by a pure virgin. 


72 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Every house is filled to overflowing with guests, and 
Cuzco’s citizens spend a quiet, busy evening in expecta- 
tion of the morrow’s feast. 

This Raymi feast was to celebrate the turning-point 
of the sun’s course; it was held in December at 
the time of greatest heat on the day of the summer 
solstice. 

The Villjac Vmu fixed the day with minute exactitude, 
daily noting the shadow cast by the short sun-column 
in the temple until it ceased to grow in length and 
ushered in the day of the Raymz feast, the day designated 
as Inti-Huatana-Punchau, for huatay means to bind, 
and this is the day when the sun is bound in his north- 
ward journey. 

The morning dawns, and before daybreak all the 
members of the imperial family gather on the Haucay- 
pata Square, whilst the vassals and subordinate princes, 
present in Cuzco, take their places on the Cusi-pata 
Square. Barefooted and cowering on the earth, they 
all await in silence the rising of the sun; and no sooner 
does the first ray break forth than the Inca rises alone, 
a golden goblet in either hand, both filled with shisha. 
That in his right hand is sacred to the Sun-God, and 
this he solemnly empties into a golden basin as a liquid 
oblation which is carried by golden pipes into the temple 
to the image of the divine Inti. 

The goblet in his left hand the Inca first raises to 
his own lips, then distributes its contents to the nobles 
who surround him, holding out little golden cups to 
receive the precious liquid. 

Followed by the princes, the Inca proceeds barefoot 
to the Sun-Temple, where the Villjac Vmu, in full 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 73 


canonicals, awaits him in the open doorway. He enters, 
the gates are shut, the Inca offers prayer to Inti. 

Next, contrary to the custom at other times, the great 
sacrifice is offered on the vast Haucaypata Square, 
now surrounded by crowds of citizens. Even the 
mummies of the dead Incas and of their Mama Goyas 
are to-day carried out of the temple and placed on their 
golden thrones, all with their royal insignia, on the 
open square. 

Black llama lambs are sacrificed in honour of the 
deity, and the Villjac Vmu steps up to the altar holding 
up to the sun the concave mirror suspended on a golden 
chain from his left wrist. 

Inti is gracious; His rays light the frail cotton 
threads placed on the focusing-point, and the sacrificial 
fire is kindled. 

With shouts of joy the nobles press forward, the 
citizens follow in their turn, whilst the priests are 
busied in continually blowing up the fire into great 
flames, for each and all to-day have but the one wish 
to take away a torch with which to rekindle the fire 
upon the domestic hearth. 

The embers that are left, however, are carried into 
the temple, and it is the duty of the acllias, as faithful 
vestal virgins, to tend the fire throughout the year until 
the next Intt-Huatana-Punchau once more extinguishes it. 

Now, too, the oracle priests arrive to cast the horo- 
scope. Unlike the temple priests, these were chosen 
from among the former heathen priests, and their duty 
it was to fill with air the lungs of the animals sacrificed ; 
it was a sign of evil import when such a lung burst 
prematurely at the Raymz feast. 


74 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Doubtless there were occasions when not only the 
Villjac Vmu but also the Itschuri (the oracle priest) 
played the part of Providence themselves and arranged 
the failure of this oracle or that, especially since the 
Villjac Vmu and Itschurt, as representatives of different 
priestly castes and sects, had no particular love for 
each other. 

Once the solemn sacrifice is over, the heavy strain is 
lifted from the expectant people and all can give full 
vent to their festive joy. 

The Inca to-day dines in the midst of his subjects on 
the Haucaypata Square. The nobles are his guests, it 
is true, but even the poorest of his people feast to-day 
from the imperial storehouse. 

The festive board glitters with the gold and silver 
of the drinking vessels, whilst especially chosen Sun- 
Virgins bring ever fresh dishes of llama flesh, of 
roast doves and fowls with vegetables, of white zanku 
bread, sweet fruits and maize, and great jugs of tshitsha 
and sora. 

But no horrible dish of human flesh, such as was 
eaten by the Aztecs in Mexico, highly civilized as they 
were in other respects, for cannibalism is a thing 
abhorred in the Inca realm. 

At last, evening casts its shadows over the festive 
board, and merriment and feasting is succeeded by 
dancing, when the men from every district of the 
kingdom tread their distinctive measures before the 
Inca. 

Nor is the sovereign less pleased to view their contests 
with wild beasts. 

And, last of all—the court theatre! In the realm of 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 75 


Tahuantinsuyu, of course, there were none but “ pur- 
veyors to the king,’”’ since everyone did his work for 
the Inca; hence therefore only a Court Theatre. 

It was rather a strange state of affairs as regarded 
art amongst the Incas. Very little was done in colour 
design, although certain temples have by no means 
unskilful specimens of wall-paintings, depicting figures 
of gods, men and animals. The buildings, too, plainly 
show that they must have understood the use of pencil 
sketches. 

Of song there was none. The Peruvians, as a race, 
have no voices for singing, and it is said that, later on, 
it was a source of the greatest annoyance to the monks 
that all their efforts to teach their converts to sing 
church music ended in complete failure. Yet they were 
fond of music and had a kind of zither as well as reed- 
pipes and shell-horns, whilst the imperial court boasted 
a permanent orchestra, composed, for the most part, 
of natives of Collia, the province with the greatest 
musical gifts. There were, too, special court poets 
(havazecs) included in the ranks of the amautas, whose 
office it was to set forth in verse the glory of the Gods 
and of the Inca. These poems were afterwards recited 
to a flute accompaniment. These havazecs were also, 
when occasion required, the authors of the plays per- 
formed on a wooden stage with a straw roof. 

Professional actors were unknown, for the highest in 
the land—often indeed the Inca’s near relatives—acted 
the different parts, a fact that explains the total absence 
of those coarse or vulgar scenes that are such a common 
feature in the Teutonic mystery plays of the Middle 
Ages, for the acting of such scenes would not have 


76 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


accorded with the dignity of the royal amateurs. Con- 
sequently these actors were held in high honour and 
received rich rewards from the Inca for their services. 

Chief amongst the dramas existing in Quichua language 
is the Play of Ollanta—A Father's Severity and a King’s 
Magnanimity. Tschudi has made a German rendering 
of it and Middendorf devoted a volume of no short 
length to its consideration. This investigator certainly 
differs from Barranka, the first translator, who assigns 
the origin of the drama, in the form still extant, to 
the time of the twelfth Inca Huayna Capac. Midden- 
dorf, on the other hand, is of the opinion that this 
form is of later origin. In any case, however, the plot, 
even if in a somewhat different setting, had been acted 
no later than during the Inca period. 

The main features of the drama as reproduced by 
Middendorf are somewhat as follows: Inca Pachacutec 
has a beautiful favourite daughter Cusi Coillur. Ollanta, 
a brave military leader, is consumed with passionate 
love of the princess and his passion is returned on her 
side. But, although her mother, the Mama Coya 
Anahuarqui, knows and approves of their love, Ollanta, 
who is of lowlier origin, dare not at first confess his 
passion to the Inca, and when, at last, on his return 
from a victorious expedition, he does so, he meets with 
rejection and harsh words. Ollanta is not only hurt 
but sees mortal peril threatening him, since it cannot 
be long concealed that Cusi Coillur, a Virgin of the 
Sun, has followed love’s call and given herself to him. 
He flees to his friend Orko Varanca, and incites the 
men of Anti to rebellion by proclaiming himself as a 
rival to the imperial throne. 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 77 


Pachacutec is furious, and sends out his trusted 
general Rumi Nahui to punish the rebel, whilst the 
Princess Cusi Coillur is imprisoned in a subterranean 
dungeon of the Convent of the Sun, where she gives 
birth to her child Ima Sumai. 

Rumi Nahui is vanquished by Ollanta and barely 
escapes with his life. The shock kills Pachacutec, and 
the new Inca, Tupac Yupanqui, succeeds to the throne. 
Rumi Nahui offers to make another attempt to defeat 
Ollanta, and visits his camp disguised as a fugitive 
and complaining of banishment at the Inca’s hands. 
Ollanta receives him cordially, but soon Rumi Nahui 
seizes the opportunity afforded him by the Raym1 
feast to betray Ollanta and deliver him into the Inca’s 
power. 

Ollanta expects death, but the magnanimous young 
Inca grants him not only life but full pardon as well, 
even installing him at Cuzco as viceroy during his 
own absence. 

Whilst this is happening, Ima Sumai, now a girl 
ten years of age, appears before the Inca’s throne to 
beg mercy for her mother in the dungeon where she 
has passed so many weary years. 

The Inca with all his retinue, Ollanta amongst them, 
proceeds to the convent of the Sun-Virgins, where he 
recognizes, in the captive, the sister, Cosi Coillur, whom 
he has believed to be dead, and Ollanta finds again his 
lost love. 

The play ends with the reunion of the lovers. 

As already mentioned, even Middendorf, who, in 
opposition to other scholars, assigns a later date to 
the play, believes that in this form it is an adaptation 


78 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


made during the Spanish period of a genuine old Inca 
drama, so that we may certainly accept it as a very 
reliable example of the dramatic art of Tahuantinsuyu. 

In any case, the plays performed in Cuzco by actors 
of royal blood were doubtless much lke it. 

We will now pay a visit to the amautas’ seat of 
learning which, as we have already mentioned, was, so 
to speak, the Inca University, or rather perhaps the 
academy of science, founded by the sixth monarch, 
the Inca Roca. 

Long before this, of course, there were men who 
devoted themselves to scientific objects, amongst which 
we must reckon enlightened agriculture and architec- 
ture. Probably Roca did but combine and further 
develop beginnings already in existence. 

No doubt, too, there had been teachers and schools 
before, for how else could the law have been carried 
out that every inhabitant of Tahuantinsuyu was to 
master the Quichua language, unless there had been 
schools and instructors to teach this language and also 
to train, at any rate, the very numerous state-officials 
down to the humblest tshuncacamayoc in the knotting 
of the guipus—the national substitute for writing—so 
that each could interpret the meaning of the bundle of 
threads ? 

Very carefully organized schools must indeed have 
been necessary to secure the uniformity in the making 
and deciphering of these quipus knots that prevailed 
throughout the whole of the vast land; it is indeed a 
most difficult question as to whether it is easier to 
learn to read and write or to get so great a mastery 
of the art of combining woollen threads of varying 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 79 


colours that in the bundle knotted by the tshuncaca- 
mayoc on the Chili frontier the higher official in Cuzco 
could see at once how many men had been required 
for a certain piece of national work, as well as their 
ages and their trades. 

Generally speaking, it is, of course, self-evident that 
the amautas’ knowledge did not reach a very high level, 
since they were entirely out of touch with the expe- 
rience of other nations and knew, therefore, only what 
they had found out for and by themselves, so that 
each piece of knowledge was entirely their own dis- 
covery. They had indeed some acquaintance with the 
course of the stars, although this was, in great measure, 
nullified by imaginative fancies. 

The star Venus was the page of the Sun-God who 
descended gradually into the ocean to dry up a part 
of its waters, whilst the new moon was the periodic 
death of the Moon-Goddess. Yet observation of sun- 
pillars had taught them how to set up a kind of sun-dial 
and to fix the summer and winter solstice. Their year, 
like ours, consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days 
and six hours, was divided into twelve months, and the 
discrepancy in time readjusted every ten years. A 
thousand years made a great Sun-Year, and ten such 
Sun-Years a Sun-Cycle. 

It is remarkable enough that they were capable of 
calculating in such long time-periods ; that the eclipses 
of sun and moon filled them with terror is no matter 
for surprise in a nation that worshipped both as deities. 

Their knowledge of geography naturally did not 
extend beyond their own country, but was so extensive 
and exact as regarded it that they had excellent relief- 


80 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


maps on which were shown in greatest minuteness 
parishes and roads as well as rivers, mountains and 
mines. Such a map of Cuzco, drawn in greatest detail, 
rightly aroused feelings of deepest admiration in the 
Spaniards ! 

And yet they had nothing more than a simple 
measuring line. 

Their calculations, too, with the guipus were entirely 
reliable. 

They were quite able to carry out calculations up to 
and even beyond ten thousand ; moreover, the different 
colours signified special words, and their method of 
arrangement, again, had a particular significance. 

It was indeed possible for the Inca to issue long 
commands by means of his guipus. 

As a rule the skill of their medical men was limited 
to a knowledge of the natural healing properties of 
certain herbs and of emetics, purgatives and sudorifics. 
Yet the amautas, skilled in medicine, occasionally 
prescribed remarkable remedies; they bathed sick 
children in urine, wrapped them in compresses of the 
same, as well as ordering draughts of this wonderful 
liquid, in which indeed the German quack and universal 
healer Thurneisser, of the time of the Elector Johann 
Georg, asserted he could find the source of every human 
malady. 

But if the little invalid’s tongue betrayed a digestive 
upset he had to chew his umbilical cord, which had been 
dried for this purpose ! 

On the other hand they possessed in the juice of a 
certain plant (Mateclliu) a wonderful remedy for eye 
troubles whose value was later attested by the Spaniards. 


ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS AND PHYSICIANS 81 


They never smoked tobacco for enjoyment, but only 
used it, in the form of snuff, as a cure for headache. 

Nature provided them with a remedy for wounds in 
their Peruvian balm. 

Surgery, however, was far in advance of medicine. 
Not only did they let blood on all possible occasions, 
but they attempted difficult major operations; skulls 
that have been found prove béyond doubt that they 
fully understood trepanning in injuries to the head and 
the substitution of silver plates in place of the bone 
removed, these indeed proving that their bulletins were 
not always: ‘“‘ Operation successful, but the patient 
unfortunately succumbed.” 

Yet it must be owned that their skill as healers was 
one of their weakest sides, if we except their preventive 
hygiene, the strongest point of which was the obligation 
laid upon every individual of absolute cleanliness in 
dwelling, clothing and person. 


CHAPTER IV 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE, WARFARE, 
POSTAL SYSTEM 


PEAKING generally, the kingdom of Tahuantin- 
suyu was a_ peace-loving state that certainly 
never made war for love of fighting. Yet, on the other 
hand, we have already noted the circumstances that 
continually forced the Incas to enlarge the borders of 
their empire. It is, moreover, quite likely that some- 
times the desire to increase his kingdom may have had 
some influence on the ruler and that a son, succeeding 
a father who had attained fame as a conqueror, would 
not care to fall short of similar glory. The unvarying 
success of their arms, moreover, and the fact that they 
did indeed improve the condition of those they con- 
quered, to a certain degree made it incumbent upon 
them to spread their benefactions in ever wider circles. 
And again, the more their country grew, the more 
essential it became to keep continual watch in the 
outlying districts and to maintain fortresses garrisoned 
with well-trained soldiers. 
It follows as a self-evident corollary that a nation 
with such a well thought-out and efficient internal 
administration would have a no less excellent military 


equipment. 
82 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 83 


We are already acquainted with the fort Saxuahuaman 
in Cuzco. Having regard to the weapons of that day 
and the utter absence of all firearms it was, of course, 
excellent, but from its very position it could not fail to 
be of less value for the defence of the country than 
the large number of frontier fortifications, many of 
whose ruins are still in existence. 

They too, without exception, were built in the same 
massive style of enormous square blocks of stone and 
on sites chosen with great discernment on commanding 
hills—quite regardless of the immense amount of labour 
required, not only to get the building material up such 
heights but also to keep’ their necessary equipment 
permanently up to full war standard. 

Squier discovered in Chancayllo a fortress, oval in 
shape, surrounded by three walls, one inside the other 
of which the outermost was over eight yards thick, 
and about nine yards high. The fortress was built 
on a hill, so that the inside wall was always on higher 
ground than the outermost one, but the space between 
the walls was levelled and steps led from one terrace 
to another. The outside wall had five gates, the middle 
one two and that inside only one. In the interior of 
the fortress there were two large round towers, each 
of which again contained a second central tower, the 
diameter of the outside tower being about fifty-five 
yards, whilst the smaller inner tower measured about 
twenty-seven yards across. These towers commanded a 
fine view of the surrounding country, and adjoining them 
was a group of square barrack buildings which all 
Seemed, at one time, to have had stucco walls decorated 
with paintings of military subjects. This explorer 


84 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


found, too, another fortress close to the coast in the 
Nepena Valley, on the summit of a mountain 1,300 
feet high. This fortress is not oval but semi-octagonal 
in form, with projecting bastions, is built of gigantic 
stones fitted with the greatest care, and has this 
peculiarity, that inside the actual fortress some appar- 
ently sacred rocks are enclosed by special walls built in 
the form of asquare. This fortress, with its diminished 
walls slanting somewhat inwards, was certainly erected 
as a defence against neighbouring tribes. 

Alexander Humboldt, in describing a great rampart 
wall in Mexico, about 4,330 yards in circumference, 
mentions that he has found much more extensive and 
stronger fortifications in the kingdom of the Incas on 
the Cordilleras, at an elevation about equal to the Peak 
of Teneriffe. 

Thus all the frontiers were protected by such bulwarks 
as these. 

Excellent roads traversed the whole country; we 
have seen that these were provided with rest-houses at 
regular intervals and, in addition to these, with great 
magazines always full of provisions and war stores 
under a strong guard. 

Military service was obligatory for every man of 
Tahuantinsuyu, and probably from his twenty-fifth 
year to his fiftieth year. We have already noticed 
what care was expended on the census, consequently 
the curaca of every district had at any moment a 
complete record of the “‘ tribal-roll ’’ and knew how many 
men he could produce in a few days. 

Those liable to service—although not allowed to leave 
their ordinary occupations for any other reason—were 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 85 


obliged to betake themselves every month to the 
cuvaca’s or cavacuna’s town for some days’ military 
training. 

According to Brehm’s estimate, the army which the 
Incas in the later decades could, at any moment, put 
into the field numbered about three hundred thousand 
men. 

This army naturally consisted of representatives of 
different provinces, and although the Quichua language 
was that officially used, not every soldier had complete 
command of it. Consequently those from each district 
formed a special division of the national army, keeping 
their native head-covering and also their own standards. 

The nucleus, the guard, so to speak, was the per- 
manent garrison in Cuzco and the Inca’s bodyguard ; 
their standard was that of the Emperor—the rainbow. 

Every ten men were under a lance-corporal, fifty 
under a non-commissioned officer, a hundred under a 
captain, a thousand under a major, five thousand 
under a colonel, ten thousand had a general at their 
head and the entire army was under the supreme 
command of the “ Hatun Apu,’ the general field- 
marshal, who, as a rule, was the Inca’s brother or uncle, 
but sometimes, too, the Crown Prince, although in that 
case the youthful commander had the help and advice 
of a number of older and more experienced counsellors. 

Those in lower commands were appointed by the 
superior officers, but the nomination of the latter lay 
in the Inca’s own hands. 

Suppose for a moment we are witnesses of an outbreak 
of war. The Sun-God has commanded the Inca to 
enlarge his kingdom, to incorporate some new tribe 


86 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


in it or some plundering neighbours have to be 
punished. 

The Inca summons his generals to Cuzco, where the 
Hatun Apu has a permanent residence, close to the 
Inca’s palace. A council of war puts before the generals 
the necessity of the expedition. 

They naturally agree, for where is the officer who 
does not gladly go to war, especially when victory is 
all but assured ? This council of war is held in Cuzco 
on the Haucaypata Square, where a cone-shaped war- 
stone, set with gold and jewels, is placed in the midst 
of the council. The Hatun Apu gives in broad outlines 
the plan of campaign, and the generals, with the help 
of their quipus, speedily give the names of those con- 
sidered bravest amongst their companies, so that the 
Inca may note these in advance for positions of 
authority. Now the post begins to work feverishly, 
and blood-red quipus tied with a dark crimson thread 
from the Inca’s frontlet are carried in all haste by the 
postal-couriers to every district of the kingdom to call 
the soldiers to arms. 

We will take this opportunity to study more closely 
the postal arrangements in Tahuantinsuyu. 

On all the roads, at intervals of about two and half 
miles, there were little post-houses in which a number 
of post-runners stood in constant readiness, These 
couriers were chosen from a mountain tribe renowned 
for its endurance; their official uniform was especially 
light in weight and so made as to allow the greatest 
bodily freedom. They occupied a privileged position, 
being exempt from payment of tithes whilst others 
looked after their land at home. 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 87 


One of the couriers always had to be on the look-out 
to see whether smoke by day or flame by night was 
rising from the post-house immediately before theirs, 
since this was the signal that a runner was on his way. 
No sooner did the waiting courier see this than he at 
once ran to meet the one coming and joined him at some 
little distance before his own post-house. In addition 
to the quipus, there were generally verbal messages to 
be given, and these post-couriers were implicitly trusted 
not to divulge these secret messages to any outsider 
whatever. 

As they ran forward the first courier breathlessly 
gave his message and took the guipu from his neck. 
The second repeated his errand, and as they reached 
the post-house the newcomer fell on the bed, where he 
was carefully tended, for he had traversed the two and 
half miles at a breathless speed, whilst the second 
runner tore on with the message towards the next 
post-house, where the same procedure took place. 

Here again, as in all else, we see the greatest effort 
was imposed upon each individual, and yet within 
certain limits, so that both guipus and verbal messages 
reached the farthest districts with lightning speed. 

If each courier had been required to cover a longer 
distance, he could not have kept up such speed, but, 
as it was, he could rest after his short but exhausting 
exertion until the next quipu hastened through the land. 

As arule this post was confined to the Inca’s messages, 
and others were only carried under exceptional circum- 
stances. What quipus or messages indeed had the 
private individual or the peasant to send through the 
country? He himself and his family never left their 


88 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


home, and if they were required to go to the mines or 
other national service, they took their relatives with 
them. 

It is true the postal-couriers carried more than letters. 
If the Inca in Cuzco on the midst of a plateau desired 
fresh fish from the sea, the courier hastened with his 
guipu to the coast, and the method of transport was so 
remarkably quick that he might rest assured that the 
fish would reach Cuzco in prime condition, no matter 
how hot the sun’s rays might be. The couriers, too, 
took advantage of the cooler night hours, for the service 
was always equally ready, whatever the time. 

But now the war qguipu was speeding through the realm 
and smoke and flames were rising not only from the 
post-houses but on every side from the hill-top beacons 
that were always kept ready piled and abundantly 
supplied with fat. 

Without a moment’s delay the hatunruna laid aside 
his plough or whatever tools he was using. The Inca 
indeed took care to choose a time when the season of 
the year did not bring with it work that would brook 
no postponement. The government works, the mines 
in the mountains were closed, and in but a few hours 
after the delivery of the guipu all, who were of military 
age, were streaming in great crowds towards the broad 
military roads. The storehouses were opened, the 
district registers, i.e. the bundles of threads, checked 
the presence of the soldiers, weapons and provisions 
were distributed and the troop marched off to meet 
crowds more at the next rest-house. 

From mile to mile the procession grew, and larger 
divisions were formed with exemplary discipline and 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 89 


order. But, at the same time, there was no less orderly 
formation of labour battalions whose duty it was to 
wait on the actual fighting force, to supplement supplies 
from the stores belonging to Temple and Crown, to 
repair any damage to the roads and to carry any baggage 
that might retard the army’s progress. Thus the store- 
houses were always full, provisions always forthcoming, 
weapons in order, and when, at night, camps were 
pitched, a good meal was given out, with no lack of 
tshitsha, music played, and the commanders saw 
that the men’s spirits were kept up by games and 
dancing. 

Heavy penalties awaited any overseer whose store- 
house was not in perfect readiness, although the supplies 
were often not needed at all, for the civilians in govern- 
ment service accompanying the army heaped both sides 
of the high roads with great stacks of fresh provisions. 
“ A soldier must not want for anything ’’ was a maxim 
amongst the Inca people, who used to encamp them- 
selves in the chief buildings of the halting-places, the 
tumbas, whilst a garrison-town arose around them for 
the soldiers ! 

On the other hand, there were very strict regulations 
for the maintenance of discipline amongst the soldiers. 
As we have already seen, the high roads, wherever they 
passed through cultivated lands, were enclosed on either 
side by earthen walls. Woe to the soldier who trod on 
a field, who ventured to loot or, as we neatly say, to 
“ requisition ’”’ anything ! 

Certain death was his punishment, whether leader or 
ordinary soldier. Thus the fighting column, constituted 
exactly as in modern times, moved slowly on towards 


90 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


the frontier and there occupied forts and fortified 
camps. 

Then, whilst the military power developed on the 
frontier like a threatening storm, whilst regiments were 
formed and provided with final orders, ambassadors 
began that activity which we have already mentioned, 
when speaking of colonization. 

These ambassadors had a twofold mission, some going 
to the tribe against whom war was declared, others to 
the neighbours of this people. 

Suggestions of voluntary submission were made to 
the tribe which was to become part of the Inca kingdom, 
presents were sent to them and alluring descriptions of 
life under Inca rule. Such an embassy was dispatched, 
not only to the chief town or, in the case of an entirely 
savage tribe, into the chief’s wigwam, but throughout 
the entire land. With wise prevision—for amongst 
these ambassadors there were—to a certain extent 
incognito—experienced army leaders and amautas as 
spies, who, whilst another ambassador with all eloquence 
advocated peaceful submission, made use of their oppor- 
tunities to give accurate reports in their quipus of the 
number and martial strength of the enemy, of their 
military tactics, roads, natural impediments and advan- 
tages. A certain number of these spies, too, remained 
in hiding after the ambassadors had gone back, in 
order to keep the Inca constantly informed as to the 
enemy’s movements. 

At the same time, too, other messengers went to the 
adjoining tribes to exhort and demand. They also 
brought gifts and endeavoured to show these people © 
how much better it would be for them to have as future 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 91 


neighbours the orderly Inca people instead of the 
unruly thieves they had at present, and demanded 
that they should either make alliance with the Inca 
or remain entirely neutral, at the same time enforcing 
their requests by threats of the direst revenge, should 
they in any way assist the Inca’s enemies. 

History shows that these threats did not fail of 
fulfilment, for, whilst the Inca nation at once became 
kindly rulers of any subject nation and punished most 
severely any plundering in the conquered territory, 
they not infrequently acted cruelly to their allies, killed 
their leaders, murdered their warriors or dragged them 
into captivity. 

For the Inca people were not angels and every war 
makes soldiers bloodthirsty. The country to be incor- 
porated in their own must be leniently treated, but 
there was nothing to be said against weakening those 
that lay farther off. They would have time enough 
to recover before their turn came and, if they had once 
felt the Inca strength, they would be all the more 
disposed, when ambassadors arrived to demand peaceful 
submission, not to let matters come to a renewal of 
warfare. 

Moreover, the Incas recognized the value of modera- 
tion even in conquest and never annexed more territory 
than they were able to colonize at once in their own 
way. Thus fighting within the boundaries of the 
empire was of very rare occurrence and then chiefly 
with the Tshancas, a savage tribe that never really 
adopted the Inca outlook as their own. 

If the embassy returned with their mission unfulfilled, 
hostilities began. 


92 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


The army made a brave show as it marched to battle 
to the music of the drums, shell-horns, reed-pipes and 
copper trumpets. 

For hand-to-hand combat they had short swords of 
very hard wood, battle-axes and clubs made of stone 
or bronze. For attacks from a distance they used 
bows and arrows, lances of the most diverse construction, 
pointed generally with fish-bones, flint or bone splinters, 
but for fighters of higher rank with copper, gold or 
bronze heads. 

The leaders had battle-axes and clubs, often very 
elaborately notched and spiked ; they also carried round 
shields as a protection and wore coats of mail, quilted 
with very thick cotton, eminently fitted to break the 
force of lance thrust or arrow-point. 

The Inca and princes of royal blood wore golden coats 
of mail decorated with the sun emblem. 

The leaders’ headgear consisted of wooden helmets 
carved with animals’ heads and decorated with gold 
and silver, or even wore the actual skulls of jaguars, 
bears or pumas. 

Use too was made of a sling, which was composed of 
plaited gold wire for the nobles; by means of this 
they used to project red-hot stones wrapped in rags 
saturated with grease. 

The swift passage through the air of course at once 
kindled the rags, so that these stones turned into 
dangerous, fiery missiles. 

Taken as a whole, then, the Inca army presented a 
very savage, barbaric appearance, and their mode of 
warfare was that of the most efficient wild Indian 
tribes. The amauias, so skilled in other directions, had 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 93 


not invented either catapults or any other military 
engines. But their neighbours with whom they were 
fighting were even more poorly equipped. 

If it should sometimes happen that the first battle 
ended in defeat, the Inca ruler did not lose heart. He 
quietly made up his forces again, let them rest in the 
frontier fortresses, and began once more until victory 
was his. 

The transport of the wounded home again was as 
excellently organized as was the sending to the front 
of food and military supplies. As soon as the war was 
ended, the victorious Inca made a triumphant entry 
into his capital. Brehm, with the help of old records, 
describes such a triumphal procession, as held by the 
second Inca, Sintshi Roca. 

All the nobles and chief officials of the realm were 
invited, whilst extensive preparations were made by 
the inhabitants of the metropolis. Cuzco was full of 
life for days beforehand and the streets gay with crowds 
of spectators that had hastened thither from every 
outlying district. Each such spectator wore not only 
his own distinctive headgear but full native costume, 
and many decorative plumes and characteristic orna- 
ments increased the gaiety of a rainbow-coloured scene. 
Charming pictures met one’s eye on all sides and joy 
was evident in every beaming face. The report of the 
Inca’s approach reduced all to order; every tribe 
ranged itself under its leader’s standard and in regular 
procession left the town to receive the descendant of 
the Sun outside the city gates. 

The Inca appeared in his usual solemn dignity. 
Shouts of joy and beating of drums resounded in his 


94 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


honour as they escorted him, with all due ceremony, 
into the city. 

The inhabitants who had come to meet their ruler 
formed the head of the procession ; they were followed 
by two thousand warriors, their heads adorned with 
plumes and bearing on breast and back gold and silver 
vessels or some rare piece of booty. But each division 
of this advance guard carried moreover strange trophies 
indeed: six at a time bore aloft a blown-out human 
form, the bodies of fallen, hostile chiefs, or rather their 
heads and arms with the remaining skin filled with air, 
and so arranged by cords and other contrivances that 
their hands tapped their stomachs and their heads 
nodded with every movement of their bearers. 

Four thousand more warriors, leading in their midst 
chained and naked prisoners, followed in the train of 
the first detachment. These carried the hostile chief 
himself on a litter, to which he was fastened with his 
arms tied behind his back. 

These prisoner-escorts were followed by the con- 
queror’s relatives, in festive garb, all bearing golden 
weapons and praising the Inca in songs of victory and 
laudatory verse. Fifteen hundred maidens danced—for 
to-day this was permitted—in the Inca’s train. They, 
too, wore the most costly raiment, their ankles adorned 
with tinkling gold and silver bangles, as they carried 
green branches and scattered flowers in the way. 

Immediately after them came the Inca’s royal retinue, 
and to-day it fell to the lot of the most highly placed 
to have the honour of carrying the Inca, seated in full 
imperial dress on his golden chair. 

Hundreds pressed forward for a share in this work of 


UNIVERSAL MILITARY SERVICE 95 


honour and continually compelled the eight bearers to 
resign the place they had won with such difficulty. 

On either side, state notabilities carried fans of scarlet 
ostrich feathers on little golden rods set with emeralds 
to shade the Inca’s face from the burning rays of the 
sun. The companies of the victorious army brought 
up the rear as the procession passed through the principal 
streets on its way to the precincts of the golden temple. 

Here the Inca left his raised litter, laid aside his 
golden sandals and crossed the threshold of Inti’s 
temple barefoot, as did all others to whom entrance 
was permitted. 

A solemn thanksgiving service with sacrifice of llamas 
and burning of incense followed, and, that over, all 
betook themselves to the great Haucaypata Square, 
where the victory rejoicings continued in festivities and 
banquetings for at least another week. 

The chief feature of such triumphs was indeed bar- 
baric pomp, much as it must have been when Dshingiz 
Chan, the mighty Mongol, celebrated his victories, yet 
with this difference, that Chan poured out rivers of 
blood whilst the Inca’s chief aim, although he wished 
his defeated enemies and captives to feel the power of 
his conquest, was to show them the splendour and 
riches of his kingdom. 

As soon as the triumphal procession was ended, they 
cut the bonds of the captive chief and of his warriors, 
and the same enemy who, in the morning, had been 
dragged about, chained to a litter, in the evening sat 
in festive raiment—a present from the Inca—at the 
imperial festive board; the other captives, too, laden 
with presents and clothed in new garments, were 


96 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


allowed to mix with their conquerors and share their 
festivities. 

Long before they returned to their own country they 
were on the terms of the utmost brotherliness with 
their conquerors, not only taking part in the general 
military tournaments but having in dance and feast 
long since forgotten that they had once been at enmity 
with their present lords and hosts and had gone to 
meet them brandishing their battle-axes. 

As a consequence, on their return home they carried 
with them from Cuzco memories of pomp such as they 
had never seen before, and of invincible power. 

Such memories proved of undoubted service in easing 
the task of the amautas and tshuncacamayocs who had, 
meantime, been busy measuring up the land and, after 
Inca fashion, distributing the inhabitants in family 
groups. 

Thus these martial and triumphal processions, how- 
ever barbaric they might appear, undoubtedly helped 
to win over fresh districts to the Inca civilization, until 
the small tribal settlement in Cuzco grew, by degrees, 
into a mighty empire extending from the borders of the 
present-day republics of Ecuador and Columbia south- 
wards to Rio Maule in Chili and from the Pagac Ocean 
eastward over the Andes. 


CHAPTER V 
PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 


RANCISCO PIZARRO, the conqueror and de- 

stroyer of the Inca realm and, later, Viceroy of 
Peru, born in 1471 or, according to others, in 1478, at 
Truxillo, in the Spanish province of Estramadura, was 
of no very distinguished parentage. His father, it is 
true, was the Captain Gonzalo Pizarro, but the child 
was illegitimate, and his mother, Francesca Gonzales, is 
said to have left him as an infant at a church door, 
and, according to report, he was nursed by a sow 
possessed of a kinder heart than could be claimed by 
his human parents. 

At any rate it seems certain that, in his youth, he 
followed the honest calling of swineherd, having so 
little education that the future viceroy never mastered 
the art of reading and writing and in his edicts con- 
tented himself with adding to his name, written by his 
secretary, a few flourishes of the most remarkable 
nature. 

In this point he resembled the Inca, who could not 
write either, but neither could Pizarro decipher the 
quipus’ message, although he grew into a fighter of 
quite indomitable energy, to whom it was far more 

Yd 97 


98 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


alien to tie knots of any kind than to sever every one 
with a stroke of his sword. 
His life in Spain did not of course satisfy him long, 


so that about 1509, that is, then, at the age of forty, — 


he made his appearance in North Columbia by the 
Gulf of Darien, Next he joined the troops of Vasco 


Nunez de Balboa, who in 1513 came down from the | 


mountains that traverse the Isthmus of Darien to take 
absolute possession in the name of the King of Spain 
of the Pacific Ocean and the lands along its shore. 
The small company of adventurers, accompanied too 
by a number of bloodhounds, had, to begin with, severe 
conflicts with all kinds of Indian tribes, but succeeded, 
at last, in reaching the coast. 

In full armour, carrying aloft a flag of the Holy 
Virgin and Child, Balbao waded knee-deep into the 
water, and with a loud voice took possession of the 
newly discovered ocean with its shores and islands and 
offered combat to any minded to dispute his right. 
Since no voice answered them from the solitudes, they 
turned with delight to cut crosses in the bark of the 
forest trees. Balbao remained for several weeks on 
that coast and acquired from the Indian tribes, partly 
by barter but mainly by force pure and simple, a great 
number of articles made of gold, as well as valuable 
pearls which the natives got from the sea. 

Even as early as this reports reached his ears of rich 
lands lying to the south filled with incredible treasure- 


stores, where they used a strange animal as beast of : 
burden which from the Indians’ clay models Balbao ~ 


thought might be a camel. 
In the following January Balbao returned to the Gulf — 


oe a ee 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 99 


of Darien, and immediately sent the account of his 
discovery, together with a great quantity of gold and 
pearls, to Spain, in the hope that facilities would be 
given him there for a great expedition into those distant 
regions. 

As answer there came Don Pedro de Avila, with a 
fleet of twenty ships. In his capacity of new Governor 
of Darien he relieved Balbao of his offices as a penalty 
for some bygone misdoings and let him understand 
that he might be thankful to remain under Avila’s 
authority as second in command. 

Thus his plans were defeated, but the name of Pizarro, 
who meanwhile had risen from the ranks to the position 
of leader, in the next few years began to be mentioned 
in connection with bold, foraging expeditions in the 
district of the Isthmus of Darien. Later on he moved 
to the colony of Panama, and nothing more was heard 
of him for a number of years. 

Not until ten years after Balbao’s voyage did the 
acting Governor of Darien, Pasqual de Andagoya, decide 
to venture on a new expedition to the south, since an 
Indian tribe, living on the bay of San Miguel in the 
Chuchama district, had petitioned for help against the 
oppressions of the inhabitants of Biru. In this word 
“ Biru ” our attention is first called to the future Peru. 

This expedition, too, had no very decided success, for 
sharp attacks of fever compelled Andagoya to return, 
whilst a later voyage of discovery, undertaken by a 
Spanish planter, was brought to an untimely end by 
the death of its leader. ; 

In his stead there sailed, in 1519, three bold adven- 
turers: Pizarro, Diego de Almagro, of equally lowly 


100 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


origin but of greater integrity than cunning Pizarro, 
and Fernando de Luque, a soldier of fortune, who had 
been, by turns, school-teacher, priest and free lance. 

The Governor willingly gave permission to the 
explorers but provided no funds, so that Luque had 
to see to these for himself, whilst Almagro undertook 
to victual the two small ships and Pizarro tried to 
find their crews. But this was not so easy as might 
be imagined, for even if there was no lack of adven- 
turous spirits idling about in the young colony and in 
the mushroom town of Panama, they were mostly of 
the calibre that would gladly get all they could of any 
new wealth, but had not the slightest wish to expose 
themselves to the perils of such an expedition. 

At last, however, Pizarro had managed to scrape 
together about two hundred men, and straightway 
sailed in one of the two vessels to the south, whither 
Almagro and Luque were to follow. This first voyage, 
however, seemed to be under an unlucky star. To 
begin with, the weather was unfavourable, tempests 
raged and compelled the travellers at once to put in 
opposite the Isle of Pearls and, only after a considerable 
stay there, did they manage at last to tack across the 
Gulf of San Miguel. They then sailed farther south- 
ward to get as far as the final point of Andagoya’s 
expedition, but they saw no inhabitants either along 
the coast or at the mouths of the various rivers. The 
land seemed entirely deserted and they met with nothing 
but poisonous mists rising from swampy parts and 
mosquitoes in such numbers as to make any idea of 
landing out of the question. At last, after a voyage 
lasting seventy days, and after thirty-four men had 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 101 


already died of fever, Pizarro with his band of eighty 
soldiers—exclusive of servants—came to an attractive 
bay with a good harbour. 

It is true impenetrable forests came down to the 
very water’s edge, but yet the neighbourhood struck 
Pizarro as not unsuitable for a resting-place. In 
landing he did not foresee the sufferings that awaited 
him here, so endless that, later, he named the inhos- 
pitable spot Puerto del Hambre, the port of famine. 

A certain number of the crew were sent back under 
command of Montenegro, the pilot, to the Isle of Pearls 
to get fresh supplies of food, and Pizarro hoped they 
would manage the direct voyage there and back in ten 
or twelve days. 

But the sun rose over the ocean seven and forty 
times before the ship came back and, meanwhile, twenty 
of the men had literally died of hunger. A few shell- 
fish and lizards, buds from the palm-trees and acid 
fruits had been all the scanty fare the others could 
find, as the primeval forest frustrated every effort to 
catch ordinary wild animals, and it was Pizarro’s iron 
fortitude alone in taking his full share of every hardship 
that saved his little band of followers from utter despair. 

At last the boat returned with a store of live pigs 
and maize, and directly they had regained their strength 
the company—which now indeed consisted of no more 
than sixty fighting men—vehemently demanded that 
Pizarro should continue his voyage of discovery. 

As soon, then, as everyone was completely restored 
to health, they sailed along the shore farther southwards 
and after the lapse of several days came to an Indian 
village on the coast. Pizarro landed full of joyful 


102 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


anticipations, only to find deserted huts. The inhabi- 
tants, no doubt, had fled at sight of the strange vessel, 
sailing across the water. But they had left great stores 
of maize behind and treasures, that gave even greater 
delight, in the shape of golden drinking vessels. They 
had indeed found an £7 Dorado. 

Even though the inhabitants had fled, the explorers 
determined to rest in the village, despite the horror 
they experienced in finding a cooking-pot full of human 
bones. The land might indeed be an El Dorado, but it 
was one inhabited by cannibals. 

Even on the first night as they lay sleeping in fullest 
confidence on the shore, they were attacked by savages 
rushing from the woods; five Spaniards fell victims 
to their spears, and Pizarro himself, with seven severe 
wounds, was carried in a dangerous condition back 
to the ship. 

Under these circumstances there was nothing else to 
be done than to return without delay to Panama and 
there recover from their injuries. But, a few days only 
before they reached the port, Almagro had started from 
it with a second ship. 

He had better luck than the first company and, like 
them, first reached—but after a quicker voyage—the 
“Port of Famine,” where he discovered Pizarro’s 
markings on the barks of the trees but no other message. 
He determined to follow him southwards and dis- 
covered the same village which had proved so fatal to 
those whom he was seeking. Their easy victory had 
inspired the inhabitants with confidence and they 
awaited the new arrivals, drawn up in battle order on 
the shore. But, heedless of their storm of arrows, 


ee a 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 103 


Almagro and his followers rushed upon the village, 
fearing that Pizarro might be held in captivity 
there. 

Almagro, too, received wounds that, later, resulted 
in the loss of an eye, but he set fire to the village. In 
spite of his wound, he felt it his duty to follow his 
partner—of whose return he was entirely ignorant— 
and after repeatedly attacking and robbing Indian 
villages along the coast, he reached the estuary of the 
Rio San Juan, which owes its name to him. 

Here he found a pleasant district with clean houses 
and inhabitants who appeared civilized and peaceably 
disposed. But he discovered that nothing was known 
of Pizarro and his men who, he thought, must have gone 
home, and, since his own diminished company was now 
too small to be able to venture alone on a further 
voyage of discovery, Almagro determined to return. 

After a favourable homeward voyage the two com- 
panions were able to meet and exchange their mutual 
experiences. Almagro had brought back considerably 
more gold than Pizarro. They would not allow them- 
selves to be discouraged by their first failure; indeed 
it only made this El Dorado, which they believed they 
had actually reached, all the more alluring. Since 
Pizarro still needed time to recover, Almagro started 
for Panama to equip the ships afresh with the help of 
the gold they had brought back and to enlist fresh 
followers. 

But Padrarias, the Governor at that time, gave him, 
at first, a very cool reception and even forbade any 
further recruiting. 

He had too urgent need of his fighting men, he said, 


104 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


to be able to allow them to be sacrificed on useless and 
hazardous adventures. 

At last, however, Luque’s persuasive powers succeeded 
in convincing the Governor and, under condition of a 
very considerable share of the profit and with the 
proviso that this time Pizarro and Almagro should share 
the command, in March 1526 the agreement was sealed 
between the Governor and the conquistadores which, in 
its fulfilment, was destined to overthrow the mighty 
realm of the Incas. 

Luque contributed twenty thousand pesos de oro, the 
work of equipment went on apace and in the spring 
of 1526 Pizarro and Almagro, accompanied by the 
capable pilot, Bartolomao Ruiz, put to sea with one 
hundred and seventy soldiers. 

This time the season was more favourable and they 
could at least, without too great peril, again reach the 
Rio de San Juan, which had proved the final goal of 
Almagro’s first voyage. They brutally attacked all and 
sundry of the peaceful Indian villages and acquired 
very considerable booty in gold and provisions, as well 
as taking prisoners, whom they intended to use later 
on as hostages. These prisoners, with whom, in course 
of time, they learnt to hold a little communication, 
informed them that, farther to the south, there lay, 
another land incomparably richer in treasures than the 
few villages thereabout. On hearing this, Almagro 
sailed with one vessel northwards again, to fetch stores 
and, above all, larger supplies of munitions, whilst the 
pilot, Ruiz, steered the smaller boat farther south to 
test the truth of the Indians’ reports. At about one 


degree south latitude he was to meet with an unex- 
: 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 105 


pected surprise. A great boat of perhaps thirty tons, 
roughly put together out of the trunks of some light- 
coloured trees, a kind of cross between a raft and a ship, 
carrying, however, a mast and a sail, came across the 
water to meet him. The rigging consisted of hempen 
ropes and great stones served as anchors. The crew 
of this strange vessel wore fine cotton or woollen 
garments in which were woven patterns of gay birds, 
conventional animals or groups of flowers. Others, 
again, had similar garments made of flame-coloured, 
white, black or blue material. The little cabin, built 
on the main part of the vessel, was surrounded with 
the most varied assortment of articles, amongst them 
hats, belts and vessels of all kinds. This people boarded 
the Spaniards’ ship without any fear and gave them to 
understand that they were merchants from the rich 
and important city of Tumbez, where great temples 
were to be found, filled with endless treasure of gold 
and silver, 

Great barter took place between the white men and 
these strangely civilized Indians, the Spaniards managing 
to secure, in exchange for all kinds of worthless rubbish, 
a great quantity of costly objects made of precious 
metals. 

After an absence of seventy days Ruiz returned, 
much pleased with his success, to Rio San Juan, and 
since, meantime, Almagro had come back with his newly 
equipped vessel, the conquistadores decided to make an 
immediate start for the south and pay a visit to this 
mysterious town of Tumbez. They speedily reached 
the Bay of San Matteo, and there, amidst carefully 
tended fields, found the friendly district of Atacames. 


106 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Their first idea was simply to attack the town as they 
had done all other Indian settlements, but when they 
were met by a well-armed force of about ten thousand 
men, they changed their minds and said they had come 
as friends and messengers of the powerful King of 
Spain; they did not, it is true, make themselves very 
well understood owing to the difficulty of expressing 
their meaning in signs only, but they succeeded in 
inducing the Indians to put down the weapons they 
were brandishing in so threatening a manner and to 
lead them as friends into their settlement. 

The Spaniards were neither numerous nor well-armed 
enough to take forcible possession of the Indians’ very 
considerable stores of golden treasure, so they made 
most strenuous endeavours to acquire all they could 
by barter, and also decided to return at once to a 
somewhat more northerly island. Here Pizarro pro- 
posed to remain with the main part of his followers, 
whilst Almagro sailed once more to Panama to collect 
reinforcements for the expedition against Tumbez. 

Meantime, however, most of the soldiers had lost all 
heart for further dangers and only asked to go home. 
When Pizarro opposed this idea, they contrived to 
send with Almagro’s company a letter to the Governor 
begging him to have them fetched back. 

So when Almagro landed in Panama and asked for 
reinforcements, not only were these refused, but he was 
forbidden to set out again himself whilst, in his stead, 
a certain officer, Tafur by name, was sent out with 
two ships and enjoined to bring all the rest of the 
expedition back by force to Panama. 

When Tafur reached the island, he was hailed by the 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 107 


perishing soldiers as the literal saviour of their lives. 
For weeks the most terrible winds had raged, inter- 
mingled with tempests and hailstorms. Their pro- 
visions were long since exhausted and their only food 
was the niggardly supplies that Nature offered them 
amongst the sea-creatures. Their clothes hung in 
tatters, and various forms of sickness had robbed them 
of their strength. Pizarro alone remained undaunted. 
Tafur distributed provisions, at the same time com- 
manding the exhausted men to embark without delay. 
He was greatly enraged when Pizarro refused and, 
dauntless as ever, in spite of his fifty-eight years, drew 
a line in the sand and then, pointing to the south, he 
cried : 

“There les the land of gold, there the endless 
treasure-stores that are ours if we will but seek them ; 
but there, to the north, lies Panama, where nothing 
awaits us but hunger and never-ending poverty. I am 
going southwards. Who will follow me?” 

The first to come over to his side was Francisco 
Rodrigues de Villa Fuerte, then followed fifteen more, 
according to Garcilasso de la Vega, but Xeres, Pizarro’s 
secretary, gives the number as only thirteen, one 
amongst them being Ruiz, the pilot of his ships. Tafur 
raged, but he was powerless to shake Pizarro’s resolu- 
tion, so he sailed away in anger with the others, refusing 
to leave behind any food or other necessary with the 
exception of a little maize. 

Strange indeed must have been the feelings of the 
intrepid company of thirteen or sixteen men, who 
gathered round their dauntless leader, as the sails 
disappeared across the ocean, leaving them forsaken 


108 THE -WORLD OF THE INCAS 


and in worse case than before, without a vessel, without 
stores, and they themselves weakened by deprivations 
of all kinds. One of their number, Ruiz, the pilot, had 
gone with Tafur to Panama to get from Almagro and 
Luque a ship, food, new recruits and weapons. 

Now that they were alone, they determined to leave 
the island as soon as possible, for their conscience 
troubled them with regard to the Indians, and no doubt 
they feared—and not without reason—that the latter, 
when they noticed that so few had remained behind, 
would one day attack and overpower them. 

So they put together a raft and took advantage of a 
northerly current to drift to the little isle of Gergona, 
on which they hoped to find a better supply of 
food. 

Seven long terrible months were they doomed to stay 
on this island. It by no means offered them what 
they had hoped, yet they could not venture to sail 
into the unknown on a mere raft, especially as they 
would then run the risk of missing Ruiz when he 
returned. The deprivations, starvation, tortures of 
every kind that they had to endure baffle description. 

When, at last, after seven months the sails, so 
ardently longed for, appeared on the horizon and made 
it possible for them to leave the inhospitable island, 
they baptized it with the name of Inferno—a veritable 
hell indeed. 

But even the ship brought a fresh disappointment. 
It is true Almagro and Luque, who had prudently 
remained in Panama themselves, had sent both pro- 
visions and weapons, but not a single recruit had 
volunteered for service. The descriptions given by the 


gee oe ee 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 109 


half-dead men brought home by Tafur had acted as a 
too powerful deterrent. 

No sooner did Pizarro and his companions feel a 
ship’s planks under their feet again than their courage 
revived, although Ruiz was the bearer of an express 
command to them to be back in Panama within six 
months at latest, under pain of certain punishment. 

They first cast anchor some miles farther south by 
an Indian village which they had not hitherto visited 
and hence had left no bad memories behind with the 
inhabitants. Here they met with a good reception 
from the peaceful natives, who feasted them with 
llama-flesh, and since the adventurers, in the course 
of their voyages, had already acquired a certain know- 
ledge of the Indian language, they took from this village 
two Indians and also two inhabitants of Tumbez, who 
chanced to be there, to serve as interpreters. 

One day later they espied the walls of Tumbez, the 
first city of the mighty Inca kingdom. Pizarro and his 
company were astounded; this was no Indian village, 
but an imposing town, above which towered a splen- 
didly built fortress protected by immense stone walls, 
a great city too with numbers of stone houses and 
temples, surrounded by fair fields and gardens and that 
in a district where rain was unknown. 

But the travellers at once noticed a system of straight 
canals, traversing the country in every direction and 
flanked by lands under careful cultivation. 

Another less pleasant surprise awaited them, however, 
for the port was alive with soldiers, who seemed about 
to steer their rafts in their direction. 

Later on, however, it transpired that these warlike 


110 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


preparations were not aimed at them, but that the 
Inca was instituting an expedition against the opposite 
island of Puna. In any case, the conquistadores plainly 
saw that they could not attack or even plunder this 
city, consequently they begged the two inhabitants 
who were on their ship to act as intermediaries. 

It was not long before some of the rafts and several 
men, apparently of leader rank, fearlessly stepped on 
board. Now Pizarro was to reap his reward for having 
expended rich gifts to gain the friendship of the two 
townsmen he had brought with him, for they described 
the Spaniards—who, of course, in weapons alone were 
so superior even to these men—as demi-gods. 

It was an unkind fate that here, as in the Aztec 
kingdom, the Europeans were helped by old prophecies 
that in both nations foretold the coming of Gods with 
white skins and blue eyes from across the sea, who 
would bring them happiness—or again would ruin the 
land. 

In the Aztec kingdom the effect of this prophecy was 
that the Emperor Motecuhzoma in Tenochtitlan saw 
in Cortez the return of the saviour Quetzalcoatl and 
opened every barrier before him, whilst the Incas 
(although this designation properly belonged only to 
the Emperor and his immediate blood-relations, we 
apply it indiscriminately to all the dwellers of Tahuan- 
tinsuyu, partly for convenience’ sake and also because 
we are unwilling to call them simply Indians) looked 
upon the men who came from the other side of the 
ocean in their shining armour, carrying fire-making 
weapons in their hands, as messengers from the gods. 

Pizarro began by sending one of his people, Alonso 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 111 


de Molina, into the town. He returned filled with 
admiration of all the treasures he had seen, but what 
impression must it have made upon the Incas that 
what pleased this divine messenger most was the sight 
of the pretty Inca maidens and that he gladly accepted 
those who were placed at his disposal. 

Nor could the Inca be blamed, for what happier lot 
could a virgin of the Sun-Temple hope for than to be 
desired by one, no less than a god! 

But how different was the nature of these “ gods ”’ 
from that of the divine Inca in Cuzco. The second 
ambassador, Pedro de Candia, made a better impression 
as he passed through the town in all the glory of his 
knightly armour, the sun’s rays reflected in the bur- 
nished surface of his coat of shining mail. To him who 
seemed indeed a god, every palace and even the Sun- 
Temple was willingly opened. 

His eyes were dazzled, for Tumbez was, at that 
time, amongst the mightiest cities of the realm. Inca 
Tupez Yupanqui had founded the town on the coast 
after his conquest of the warlike aboriginal tribe and, 
under Huayana Capac, Tumbez had risen to great im- 
portance. Quite contrary to Inca traditions elsewhere, 
it had developed a commercial side and carried on, 
although in primitive vessels, a brisk coasting trade. 
Candia was indeed dazzled at this El Dorado. The 
rich contents of the gold sands in the neighbourhood 
had made it possible to decorate the temple in Tumbez 
almost as richly as that in Cuzco. The walls were 
overlaid with gold, golden vessels shone in absolutely 
endless numbers in the palace, the residence of a 
member of the Inca’s family, and even a golden garden 


‘ 


112 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


with golden plants and animals was laid out round the 
temple. 

Not only all this, but the splendid, wonderfully 
woven rugs, the costly garments of fine vicuna wool 
that were made in the convent of the Virgins of the 
Sun, the order and cleanliness of the civilized town 
and, added to these, the fortifications with their massive 
buildings, the water-system, which even supplied the 
top of the hill with its life-giving stream, made a great 
flourishing, civilized city indeed, filled with contented 
people ! 

Pizarro invited the Inca Governor to his ship, and the 
invitation was accepted. With his great clever eyes 
the “‘savage’’ looked at the ship with astonishment 
but fearlessly, and saw the working of the firearms. 

Then, however, he asked his strange visitors whence 
they came and why. Pizarro, in full armour, unfurled 
the Spanish flag as he replied : 

“I come as the ambassador of the King of Spain, 
the most powerful monarch of the world, to bring 
this country into subjection to its rightful lord, to 
snatch it from the darkness of barbarism and to 
convert it to the only true religion of Jesus Christ.” 

What must the Inca have thought of these proud 
words from the lips of the man who had come across 
the sea with so few followers and had been reduced 
to the grateful acceptance of such food as was offered 
him P 

He listened and looked at him with those shrewd 
eyes of his, but said not a word in reply. Indeed he 
gladly shared the feast to which Pizarro had bidden 
him and invited the conquistador in return to the 


eT 
42 40 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 113 


palace. The Spaniards remained some considerable 
time as guests in Tumbez. They recognized that they 
could do nothing here by force, so endeavoured to get 
possession of as great a store of gold and precious 
stones as possible by barter. This offered no difficulty, 
for gold was too abundant for the Incas to set much 
store by it, whilst the things offered by the Spaniards 
had all the charm of novelty. 

Pizarro had given his people most stringent orders 
to refrain from violence of any kind and, as soon as 
he had filled his ship with treasures, he once more 
in full contentment steered his course towards the 
north. The Incas felt they were losing a friend, whilst 
Pizarro’s farewell was probably the first true word he 
had uttered in Tumbez: ‘‘ We shall meet again soon.”’ 
How different, no doubt, was the import of these words 
to him and to the trusting mind of the Inca! They 
were the city’s sentence of death carried out later by 
the conguistador Pizarro. 

Let us anticipate for once and state briefly what we 
shall deal with later on. Cieza de Leon who in 1548, 
that is, then, but twenty years later, visited the town 
of Tumbez, says: 

“The once prosperous town lay in ruins and these 
were the only signs of its former greatness. Almost 
the whole of the fruitful valley was turned into a 
wilderness ; orchards and cornfields were overgrown 
with weeds. The diligent, civilized inhabitants had all 
succumbed, if not to Spanish weapons, then to the 
inhuman burdens imposed upon them by their con- 
querors. Destruction, death, desolation reigned wherever 
the victor had sated his thirst for gold.” 

8 


114 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Pizarro returned to Panama full of proud hopes. 
Surely now he could not fail to get a favourable hearing 
from the Governor; now indeed he would allow him 
to equip a great expedition. But he was mistaken ; 
neither his report nor even his golden booty made any 
impression on the Governor, Don Pedro de les Rios, 
who declined to give any assistance, declaring that he 
could not have his colony depopulated to provide 
helpers in the adventurous conquests of imaginary 
districts. 

In the Governor’s blindness fate appeared once again 
to grant a reprieve to the Inca kingdom. The three 
unwearying men seemed in evil case, for even the 
considerable treasure which Pizarro had brought home 
did not provide gold enough to pay the debts which 
Luque, in spite of his wealth, had been compelled to 
incur to get the enormous sums that the expedition 
had already swallowed. Still, neither Pizarro, regard- 
less of his increasing years, nor his companions were the 
men to give up a plan once formed. 

Once again Luque borrowed Pesos de ovo and Pizarro 
determined to sail immediately to Spain to report to 
the king in person. 

In the summer of 1528 he arrived in Seville and 
found—a reception he by no means expected. He was 
marched straight from his ship to a debtor’s cell on 
the accusation of a former creditor who was probably 
in the pay of Pizarro’s enemies. But the King who, 
meantime, had heard of the wonderland which the 
conquistador said he had discovered, was himself anxious 
to hear his experiences from his own lips, so his 
liberation was commanded, and he exchanged his 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 115 


dungeon in Seville for the royal audience chamber in 
Toledo. 

Yet ill fate still dogged his footsteps! Charles the 
Fifth, it is true, listened with astonishment to the 
strange tale, accepted with pleasure the gold vessels 
and the llamas that Pizarro produced to confirm his 
words, gazed with wonder at the natives of Peru who 
were brought to his court and expressed his sympathy 
with the conqueror’s sufferings on the ‘“ Inferno” 
island; but he was on the point of setting out for his 
solemn coronation by the Pope at Rome, so delegated 
the testing of Pizarro’s plans to the “‘ Council of the 
Indies.”’ 

Whether these councillors had been prejudiced by 
the Governors or whether it was only that they did not 
see in him the discoverer of the richest gold land in 
the world, the man who was prepared to lay another 
realm at the King’s feet, but only a lowly born adven- 
turer, certain it is that they treated him just as, at the 
same time, they did Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, 
that is, they kept him waiting in vain, so that Pizarro, 
who pictured himself as the possessor of untold treasure, 
had to spend months in aimless inaction and greatest 
want. 

Fortunately the Queen, who had remained in Spain, 
interested herself in him and, thanks to her influence, 
his luck changed on July 26, 1529. For on that day 
Pizarro was invested with all the rights of a discoverer 
of Peru, given the supreme control of the whole land 
as far as 720 miles south of Santiago, with the title of 
Adelantado and Viceroy, and presented with a new coat 
of arms which included an Inca town, a llama and the 


116 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


imperial seal, as well as a substantial salary for the rest 
of his life. 

Almagro was remembered too, although with a 
smaller salary and the dignity only of Commander of 
Tumbez. Luque, the former roving teacher, was 
promoted to be Bishop of Tumbez, and the captain, 
Ruiz, to be chief pilot of the South Sea. 

All very grand and yet little enough! Pizarro was 
to have a salary not even paid by the government, 
but which he was to provide himself from the revenues 
of the new kingdom. He received neither ready money, 
ships nor troops, only permission to make recruits, 
whilst the Council of the Indies reserved to themselves 
the right to inspect these troops—which must reach a 
certain number—before their departure ! 

In spite of all, however, Pizarro had achieved his 
aim, and now came the day of a small triumph. 

After an absence of twenty years the despised swine- 
herd again entered Truxillo, the town in which he had 
been born. With all possible honours thick upon him, 
and wearing his state-mantle and red Santiago cross, 
the viceroy of a fairyland—still, it is true, awaiting 
conquest—he rode into his native city, where a solemn 
procession of townsfolk gave him escort. 

Those who had at one time looked down upon him 
in contempt now hastened to prove their kinship or 
affection, whilst his four brothers, of whom only the 
eldest, Hernando, was his father’s lawful son, whilst the 
remaining three were, like himself, illegitimate, deter- 
mined to be the first among many to accompany him 
into the new wonderland. aed 

Hernando Pizarro was proud and arrogant, destined 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 117 


to bring his brother trouble rather than joy, but these 
Pizarros, all four of them, must have been brave and 
iron-willed men, for Hernando had already numbered 
sixty years, whilst Francisco, the viceroy, was now 
fifty-eight ! 

Recruiting volunteers who would follow Pizarro’s 
banner was easier than obtaining funds, although, after 
six months, the number waiting on the three ships in 
Seville harbour fell far short of the three hundred and 
fifty, the minimum fixed by those in authority. Nor 
were they fully supplied with munitions and equipment. 

Then the Council fixed their visit of inspection and 
Pizarro, fearing that his ill-luck might again play him 
an ugly trick, immediately put out to sea on one of 
the ships and left to his brother Hernando the task 
of explaining to the Commission that all they found 
missing in men or equipment had gone in the vessel 
which had already started. 

The little flotilla met then on the open sea and 
sailed before a favourable wind to the harbour of 
Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama. 

But his reception by Almagro and Luque proved a 
source of fresh difficulty, for both were annoyed that 
Pizarro had obtained higher honours for himself than 
forthem. Almagro, in particular, felt injured although, 
so far, Pizarro alone had borne all the trials of the 
expeditions with the exception of Almagro’s single 
voyage. 

In vain Pizarro assured them that he had done all 
in his power for his companions and that he was pre- 
pared to share everything honourably with Almagro. 
But Almagro saw through Pizarro and knew that, 


118 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


later on, if it served his purpose, one rogue would cheat 
another, so he turned on his heel in anger and, accom- 
panied by Luque, definitely left Pizarro. Probably it 
was mainly owing to the brother Hernando who, as 
the only true-born nobleman, felt himself superior to 
all, and especially to Almagro and Luque, that the 
dissension between former friends increased and ended 
in an open breach. 

The Viceroy of Peru entered Panama with every 
sign of solemn pomp and again tasted the sweets of 
triumph, this time over the Governor, whose control 
he need no longer fear. But this again was a triumph 
of but short duration, for although he had titles, ships 
and a certain number, albeit small, of recruits, yet, 
even at that time, money was the first necessary of 
warfare, and of this he had so little that he was not 
able even to feed his troops, to say nothing of suitably 
equipping them for the expedition against Tumbez. 
What was to be done then? Pizarro attempted a 
reconciliation with Almagro, who would, however, have 
none of it. 

For Almagro no doubt said to himself that it would 
be easy for him to reap the sole advantage of all that 
Pizarro had so far achieved. So he determined with 
Luque’s help to carry out himself the expedition that 
Pizarro, through want of funds, had to defer month 
after month. 

The soldiers were grumbling; they had not come 
over from Spain to starve in Panama but to fill their 
pockets as fast as possible with Inca gold. Moreover, 
they did not know the merits of either Pizarro or 
Almagro as generals, so were quite ready to go over 


PIZARRO THE CONQUISTADOR 119 


to the latter with flying colours, provided only he 
would lead them to Tumbez and its treasures without 
delay. 

Just as Pizarro was resentfully expecting to see the 
shining gold slip through his fingers, a passing ailment 
of Almagro’s and the tactful intervention of :Antoine 
de la Gama, an official in Panama, succeeded, at the 
last moment, in bringing about a reconciliation between 
the former friends. Almagro professed his readiness 
to put at Pizarro’s disposal his stores of food and 
munitions, with the addition of a sum of money, as well 
as abdicating the chief command in his favour. 

In the cathedral church of Panama the banner was 
solemnly dedicated and leaders and men blessed by 
the monk, Juan de Vargas, who, in company with 
several cloister brothers, was joining the expedition 
with a view to mission work ; and whilst Almagro and 
Luque once more stayed behind in Panama, the Pizarro 
brothers, amidst the bystanders’ shouts of joy, sailed 
out of the Panama harbour with two or, as other 
historians state, three small ships and a force of one 
hundred and eighty foot and thirty-seven horse soldiers 
—a ridiculously small number when we bear in mind 
that their aim was the utter destruction of an empire 
with a fighting force of no less than three hundred 
thousand men. 

This was in January 153I, when the conguistador 
had already passed his sixtieth birthday. Nor was he 
taking with him any trained company of regular troops, 
but only a crowd of booty-seeking, greedy adventurers ! 

We have given a more detailed account of Pizarro’s 
earlier history than was really justified by the limits 


120 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


of this volume, but it was essential in order to get a 
real understanding of his strange character. To achieve 
the impossible is only granted to a nature of such 
iron will, so steeled by difficulties, and of such invincible 
persistence as to be able, in spite of approaching old 
age, to adhere to a purpose once formed, when such a 
nature was united with indomitable force, vigorous 
health and a character that was a mixture of cunning 
ability and a cruel energy that would shrink from no 
means to carry out its ends; such a man alone would 
be able by means of a raiding expedition, which, as we 
have seen, is without a parallel in history, to fall upon 
a prosperous empire, a well-ordered state that, for no 
less than four centuries, had steadily grown in size and 
strength and by cleverly taking advantage of internal 
dissensions to bring about in a short time its utter 
destruction. 

After this unavoidable digression, we will now return 
to the Incas and consider the circumstances that paved 
the way to ruin. 


CHAPTER VI 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS AND GREED 
OF GOLD 


BOUT 1490 Huayna Capac, the thirteenth Inca, 
succeeded to the throne. The most brilliant of 

his race aS warrior and clever administrator, he was 
destined to bring his realm to the zenith of its power 
and, at the same time, to kindle the spark that should 
later develop into the all-consuming fire of destruction. 
He was but twenty years of age when his father, Tupac 
Yupanqui, at that time occupied with a tedious war 
against the country of Pu:tu (Quito), situated in what 
is now called Ecuador, appointed him commander-in- 
chief, since he himself felt old and ailing. After hos- 
tilities lasting many years and conducted by him with 
great ability and untiring perseverance, the youthful 
leader succeded in overcoming the hostile tribe and in 
adding to the empire another extensive district. But 
the young Crown Prince had, at the same time, lost 
his heart to the daughter of Conchocando, the chief of 
Puitu, at that time ruling in the ancient town of Lican. 
To begin with, however, Huayna was Inca enough to 
recognize what he owed to his position; he therefore 


returned at the head of his triumphant army to Cuzco, 
121 


122 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


where the whole nation met the handsome youth with 
the most enthusiastic of welcomes. 

Just as the fortifications of Saxuahuaman were nearing 
completion, the young conqueror’s father, Inca Tupac 
Yupanqui, died. Immediately after his death, Huayna 
withdrew into the private apartments of his palace, 
which he did not leave until, after the prescribed weeks 
of strict seclusion, his solemn coronation as Inca took 
place. 

Even as early as this there were signs of the rising 
of an evil star over the Inca house. During his weeks 
of seclusion, some of his step-brothers attempted an 
insurrection, but his notable victory, his lovable char- 
acter and perhaps, as much as anything, the young 
emperor’s great beauty, had so endeared him to the 
hearts of his people that, with one accord, they refused 
to listen to the rebels and the coronation took place 
with unbounded magnificence. All princes of the realm 
gave a fabulous amount of golden treasure, and the 
reports given by Spanish chroniclers would seem 
incredible did we not remember that the realm of 
Tahuantinsuyu at that time exceeded two thousand 
four hundred miles in length and might certainly be 
considered the richest gold land of the whole world. 

No sooner was the coronation over than Huayna 
firmly grasped the reins of government. His position 
at such an early age of commander-in-chief had soon 
made him into a man, and his subsequent victory had 
awakened in him a desire to win the title of a successful 
conqueror. 

It is, however, significant of woman’s position amongst 
the Incas that Huayna, this powerful young emperor, 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 123 


who had gathered round him the most experienced of 
his father’s counsellors, never entered upon any under- 
taking without first consulting his mother, the widowed 
Mama Coya, and that his filial obedience and affection 
were so deep-seated that he postponed not only his 
plans of conquest but even the journey throughout 
his realm, obligatory on every Inca at his accession, 
until the death—certainly not very long delayed—of 
his mother, who had begged him not to leave Cuzco 
for long during her lifetime. It almost seems as though 
the old lady had a presentiment that danger was 
threatening her son from the newly acquired kingdom 
of Puitu. 

A second evil omen also seemed to threaten the royal 
house. In this twentieth year, at the time of his depar- 
ture to overthrow the people of Puitu, he had, in 
conformity with the royal custom, married his eldest 
sister but, for the first time since the beginning of the 
dynasty, it happened that there was no issue of the 
marriage. 

A family council of the Incas was held. Since a 
legitimate heir was the first condition of stability of 
rule, the Inca took two other wives on approval, so to 
speak—his younger sister and a more distant relative ; 
whichever of these two first gave him an heir was to 
attain the dignity of Mama Coya. 

The Inca’s sister won in this curious competition 
but, shortly after, the second wife also gave birth to a 
little son. The first-born at once received the name 
of Inti Kussi Huallpa (son of my joy) and the young 
father, in his delight, made the great gold chain which 
we have already mentioned as being sunk in the Lake 


124 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


of Urcos ; the second was named Inca Manco and both 
were destined in the future to play an inglorious part 
in the ruin of the empire. 

But now after his mother’s death the young ruler 
was faced with important duties. Even his father, 
Inca Tupac Yupanqui, had not exercised to the full 
all the old Inca caution and had increased his kingdom 
by conquest more quickly than was expedient, and 
thus it happened that frequent disturbances arose in 
the newly added provinces. So the young Inca started 
on a journey of some years’ duration through his 
kingdom. 

How strange are the similarities we cannot fail to 
see with recent German history. The last Inca came 
to the throne when but a young man, he won all hearts, 
he had an extraordinary idea of his own greatness and 
a quite exceptional love of pomp and show. No Inca 
ever travelled with so much or such pomp as did 
Huayna; nor did any Inca ever find so warm a place 
in women’s hearts ! 

The Spanish conquerors heard with amazement that 
the golden throne-like chair in which Huayna was 
carried through his vast realm along roads specially 
cleaned and bestrewn with fragrant flowers for this 
occasion was thickly set with precious gems. 

One loyal demonstration followed another, and then 
he sent messengers to all neighbouring tribes demanding 
peace and subjection, which no one dared to refuse. 
If seemed as if a time of real peace was destined to 
dawn under the sway of this proud, young, pomp- 
loving ruler. 

He, however, took up his residence for a considerable 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 125 


time in his newly won kingdom of Puitu, and spared 
no expense to beautify the port of Tumbez and other 
places in the district with the most costly magnificence. 

He stayed there two full years, during which he 
committed the indiscretion of not only marrying the 
conquered chief’s daughter, whom he had loved since 
those bygone days of early warfare, but of setting an 
entirely new example to the Inca dynasty by raising 
her to the position of a second Mama Coya, regardless 
of the fact that she was a foreigner, a princess who did 
not belong to the sacred Inca house, and that his 
sister, who had already been legally raised to the 
dignity of Mama Coya, had already given him a son 
and heir. 

The remainder of the Inca’s reign now consisted of 
numberless journeys, magnificent feasts, easy victories 
and the erection of new, imposing buildings. 

It is true that the emperor was once nearly defeated 
and murdered by a comparatively insignificant people. 
This occurred as he left Tumbez, intending to conquer 
the island of Puna, which Pizarro, too, visited on his 
way to Tumbez. With apparent submission the natives 
had invited him to visit the island to receive their 
homage. Huayna went over on a flotilla of rafts but, 
instead of having the ancient idols brought over as his 
wise ancestors always did into the temple at Cuzco, 
he had them all destroyed on the spot, in utter dis- 
regard of the feelings of the few natives. Nor did these 
raise any objections; indeed they even spread a feast 
in honour of the Inca. But as he returned the next 
day across the strait he was only saved by the fact 
that he himself had, contrary to expectation, sailed on 


126 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


in front, whilst his relatives who had accompanied him 
as acting generals accepted the invitation of the 
islanders to be rowed across on their rafts. In the 
middle of the sea the people secretly undid the ropes 
round the rafts and drowned every one of their Inca 
enemies. 

The revenge of course was terrible, for Huayna at once 
saw that almost all the inhabitants were done to death. 

The great festivities in Cuzco connected with the 
consecration of the fortifications, now at last com- 
pleted, recalled him to the capital, and the following 
years were entirely occupied with punitive expeditions 
against insubordinate rebels or neighbours and the 
grand victory celebrations that inevitably followed 
them. 

When he defeated the chieftain of Manta, he obtained 
possession of a number of the most splendid emeralds, 
the largest of which was so gigantic that it was looked 
upon as a god and received offerings of other smaller 
stones, all of which naturally found their way into the 
Inca’s treasure-house. 

Again and again his heart drew him to Puitu, where 
his favourite Mama Coya lived with the little son, named 
Atahuallpa, who also soon won the chief place in his 
father’s affections. Even as a child he showed signs 
of an arbitrary nature very different from the somewhat 
shy and kind-hearted temperament of his step-brother 
Huascar, the heir to the throne. 

Huayna turned over in his mind how he could secure 
an independent position for this, his favourite, even 
after his own death. He summoned his nobles, as well 
as the Crown Prince Huascar to Puitu, and signified 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 127 


his wishes to them. He could, of course, not exclude 
Huascar, his heir, from the succession, but he told the 
assembled magnates that since the realm had now 
grown to such an extent, Huascar would remain in 
Cuzco as chief Inca, whilst his second son, Atahuallpa, 
was to be made independent sovereign in Puitu. 

To this, unfortunately, the kindly Huascar agreed, 
and even though the councillors disapproved they did 
not dare to oppose his will. Atahuallpa was surrounded 
with all royal honours; for the first time there were 
two future heirs to the throne in the land and Puitu 
was raised to the dignity of the second capital. 

But just then Huayna was filled with a fresh anxiety. 
News reached him that a great ship with white-skinned 
strangers—Pizarro and his companions—had appeared 
outside Tumbez. They had, it was true, come as 
friends, and had only strolled through the city in their 
shining armour with a flash of lightning in their hands 
before sailing off again. 

Huayna at once recalled the old prophecy, made in 
the time of his ancestor Inca Huiracotsha, which fore- 
told the coming of strange gods from across the ocean 
who would overthrow the kingdom. He saw that 
measures were immediately taken to prevent the 
strangers from landing, but year after year passed and 
the Inca forgot his fears while Pizarro tarried in 
Spain. 

Huayna now determined to leave Cuzco for good 
and to pass the evening of his days in Puitu with his 
favourite wife and son, but an epidemic of measles 
broke out in Puitu, which did not spare even the divine 
Inca, who quickly died from the disease. 


128 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


The ‘‘ greatest of the Incas” he has been called by 
many historians, and it is no doubt probable that the 
Spaniards would not have found it so easy to conquer 
the country if he had still been living. But, in reality, 
it was his amazing self-conceit, his extravagance, his 
love of empty show and the habit he had of putting 
aside the prudent, well-considered laws of his ancestors 
that prepared the way for the ruin that was to come 
with such astounding speed. 

Two Incas were now reigning in Tahuantinsuyu : 
Huascar, the legitimate son and heir in Cuzco, and 
Atahuallpa in Puitu. The kingdom acclaimed Huascar 
with joy as he came to the throne, at first indeed, 
under his mother’s regency, but soon as solemnly 
crowned king. He was both far-sighted and gentle ; 
with no lust of conquest, he would indeed have been 
a peaceful Inca who would have followed in his fore- 
father’s footsteps and have colonized by degrees and 
completely won all new parts of his realm. 

Atahuallpa, however, was quite other in character, 
belligerent, greedy of power, quick in decision and 
full of ambition. He knew he had been the favourite 
son and that his father would certainly have left him 
the whole kingdom had it been within his power to 
do so. 

To be ruler of insignificant Puitu and to resign the 
other mighty kingdom to the weakling Huascar—as 
he dubbed the gentle Inca—by no means satisfied his 
lust of power. So he contrived to gather many of his 
father’s generals round him in Puitu, for they thought 
—and doubtless rightly—that they would achieve 
greater honours under the warlike Atahuallpa than 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 129 


under the peace-loving Huascar, who never spent his 
time devising warlike schemes. 

The solemn coronation took place in Cuzco. All 
hearts opened to Huascar, and messengers, sent by 
Atahuallpa to lay secret plots, had to return, their 
errand undone; there was no room in Cuzco for 
Atahuallpa, who was not even of purely Inca descent. 

It is true that the invitation to attend the coronation 
and do homage to the new supreme Inca was declined 
by Atahuallpa, and the generals, gathered round him, 
also stayed in Puitu. The kindly Huascar thought 
that his brother was detained by dangers threatening 
his frontiers. 

Huascar threw himself whole-heartedly into peaceful 
activities. He found fullest occupation in dealing with 
the college of the amautas, the civilization of the people, 
the prosperity of the country, the establishment of 
markets and the provision of additional roads and 
systems of irrigation; but, time and again, reports 
reached his ears that his ambitious brother in Puitu 
was getting together great fighting forces and that he 
was busy making his plans to rebel against him. 

At last even Huascar’s patience gave way, and he 
sent a command to his step-brother in Puitu to come 
at once to Cuzco and, without delay, offer the homage 
he had so far neglected. 

Atahuallpa received the embassy with every mark 
of honour, and declared his readiness to give up even 
Puitu if his royal brother should so desire, and also 
his willingness to start at once for Cuzco to pay him 
homage, if only His Majesty would allow him to come 
with a large retinue, so that, in accordance with Puitu 

9 


130 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


custom, he might perform once more solemn funeral 
rites at his father’s tomb. 

For Huayna’s body had been taken on a golden litter 
to Cuzco, whilst, in accordance with his wish, his heart 
had been deposited in the Sun-Temple of his beloved 
Puitu. 

Huascar was pleased, and gladly consented to his 
brother’s retinue. He was, moreover, ready to confirm 
him in all his rights as king of Puitu. He only saw 
peace in prospect, but the revengeful, ambitious 
Atahuallpa was laying his treacherous plans with quite 
another end in view. 

The couriers hastened through Puitu with solemn 
guipus to summon all of high estate to the capital to 
take part in the homage-procession to Cuzco. But, at 
the same time, other confidential guipus took orders 
to the generals in the secret at once to get together 
their soldiers and to march with all possible speed and 
with hidden weapons in companies of five hundred men 
to Cuzco. . 

The constant marching-by of so many men aroused 
the curiosity of the inhabitants of the districts, but 
it was known that plans had been made for a great 
reconciliation-feast in Cuzco and these companies 
announced that they were serving-men going on in 
advance. 

To begin with, these disguised soldiers marched at 
long intervals, but the nearer they came to Cuzco the 
smaller these intervals became until, at last, the 
experienced Governor’s suspicions were aroused and 
Special messengers raced towards Cuzco with the 
message: ‘‘ These are no curacas and princes, passing 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 131 


on their way to take the oath of allegiance, but ordinary 
soldiers with their leaders. An army is on its way 
against Cuzco. To your arms, O Incas!” 

Even Huascar was shocked. The messages increased 
with each passing day, and he no longer had any doubts 
as to Atahuallpa’s evil intention. 

So now, too, couriers hastened with imperial quipus, 
bidding the commanders of the loyal districts of 
Andesuyu, Calliasuyu and Chontisuyu to send all men 
capable of bearing arms. 

Too late, alas! It is true all his relatives hastily 
rallied round the young lawful Inca, but all the available 
fighting men were young and inexperienced, and in the 
meantime twenty thousand well-prepared rebel soldiers 
had openly unfurled their banners and set up their 
standards in the valley of the river Apurimac. 

Tens of thousands more hastily followed them, whilst 
Atahuallpa prudently awaited the issue on the frontier 
of his own kingdom. 

The two armies met not far from the heights of 
Villcacuna, and a fierce combat followed from early 
morning until late into the night; on one side 
Atahuallpa’s experienced soldiers, on the other unprac- 
tised but intrepid troops under the leadership of 
Huascar, who, now that war was forced upon him, 
showed himself a worthy descendant of the long line 
of Incas. 

Victory fluctuated from side to side; often indeed 
it seemed as if the right would win, but, towards evening, 
fresh and excellent reinforcements, kept in reserve 
until then, dashed down from the mountains to the 
support of Atahuallpa’s troops, made a flank attack 


132 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


upon the exhausted Inca army, gained a decisive victory 
and Huascar had to beat a retreat. Atahuallpa had 
mixed blood in his veins and his generals were bar- 
barians of Puitu whose innate bloodthirsty cruelty had 
not yet been tempered by the milder Inca spirit. 

Atahuallpa had none of his father’s genial temper, 
but was cruel and bloodthirsty. 

On that same evening Huascar’s valiant Hatun Apu 
was impaled and butchered, his skull being afterwards 
made into a drinking-cup for Atahuallpa ! 

Huascar himself was taken prisoner. 

On this fatal day of 1531 six thousand men are said 
to have met their death in this strife between the 
brothers, but Cieza de Leon, who visited the battle-field 
only a few decades later, thinks that, judging from the 
vast quantity of bleached bones, the number must have 
been far greater. 

Atahuallpa marched rapidly to Cuzco, although he 
still disguised his real intentions and invited all sur- 
vivors who could boast of descent from the royal house ~ 
—and there were thousands—to assemble at Cuzco. 

They all came, except a few detained at home by 
illness—came from love to Huascar and to the imperial 
house. To their amazement, however, they saw that 
neither Atahuallpa nor his captive brother was present, 
but that the King of Puitu’s two generals, Chalcuchima 
and Quizquiz, were holding the city with great 
forces. 

‘The Inca will come and begs you to wait for him.” 

That night Atahuallpa carried out his terrible plan. 
He, of course, was no Inca. What were these men to 
him? Only an impediment in his way. 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 133 


It was a frightful baptism of blood, a St. Bartholo- 
mew’s night in Cuzco! 

The city literally swam in blood. Atahuallpa had 
every living Inca butchered so that, secure from the 
fear of any rival, he might assume sole sovereignty in 
Tahuantinsuyu. All who survived the night were 
taken prisoners and next day dragged to the parade- 
ground behind Saxuahuaman. There the shackled Inca 
princes were ranged in two long lines through which 
the captured Huascar, in mourning garb with his hands 
bound behind his back, was forced to pass and then 
the bronze battle-clubs finished the work. The same 
fate befell those cuvacas who had remained loyal to 
Huascar. Prince Inti Manco, the Inca’s step-brother, 
alone succeeded in making his escape. 

Atahuallpa was just approaching Cuzco with a view 
to his solemn coronation as Inca, when the message 
reached him that a fleet of great ships had sailed into 
the Bay of San Matteo and that strangers, in coats of 
mail, with drawn swords and lightning in their hands, 
had disembarked from them. 

A supremely cruel retribution had already followed 
upon the one mistake made by Huayna in raising, con- 
trary to his race traditions, Atahuallpa, the son of his 
foreign wife, to share the position and dignity of imperial 
ruler, but it was just possible that the strong national 
Inca constitution might have survived even this crisis, 
probable indeed, for, although Cuzco was defeated, prac- 
tically all the rest of the realm was loyal to Huascar. 

But, at this very moment, Fate willed that Pizarro 
with this greedy crew of dissolute adventurers should 
land upon the Inca coast. 


134 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


At first the Spaniards marched on slaughtering, 
burning, plundering southward along the coast as far 
as the Gulf of Guayaquil. Gold! gold! was their cry, 
until their eyes were dazzled and every temple increased 
their spoil. Passing by Tumbez, they began by crossing 
over to the island of Puna, there to await the end of 
the rainy season in raids and plunder. 

Pizarro had to give way to his people’s wild thirst 
for gold, although he himself was more far-sighted. 
For he was not aiming at the conquest of a few coast 
towns but of the whole kingdom, and the report reached 
him of the outbreak of civil war, followed by Atahuallpa’s 
victory. 

This victor, then, must be won over; his help must 
be secured to gain a footing in the country and then 
he must be ousted. In broad outline such was Pizarro’s 
plan. 

He had found on the island of Puna a number of 
prisoners from Tumbez; these he liberated and sent 
home in the hope of thereby winning the friendship 
of the inhabitants. But disappointment awaited him 
for when, the rainy season being over, he visited the 
town, he found the gates barred and entrance denied 
him. 

For the moment, however, Pizarro was on the island 
of Puna. What cunning, bad men these wild Indians 
were, to be sure ! 

At first, they received the white men with open arms, 
and gave them so liberally of their own abundant 
stores that the Spaniards were delighted. Then, how- 
ever, things changed; the deceitful savages did not 
feel honoured when the rough Spaniards violated their 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 135 


wives and daughters, nor were they pleased when the 
intruders, not content with the gold given them in 
willing exchange, ruthlessly broke into the temples and 
despoiled them. At any rate, the Spaniards noticed 
the continual appearance of men about them in greater 
numbers than they had seen before and, at last, it was 
betrayed to them that the savages had determined to 
murder all the strangers in one night. 

It would have furthered true civilization and been 
to the advantage of the country if this intention had 
been carried out, and the two hundred Spanish adven- 
turers could have been far better spared than the 
whole Inca State. But Pizarro took the chief and his 
sons prisoners unawares and carried out a bloody 
massacre of the inhabitants. It is true that on the 
following night the few Spaniards were attacked by a 
vast Indian host filling the air with their wild battle- 
cries which, however, soon turned into screams of 
pain, for Pizarro being prepared, his firearms did 
terrible destruction ; line after line of the Indians fell 
to the ground, and the rest took to flight. Not satisfied 
with this, Pizarro searched the whole island for days 
and slaughtered every human creature. Some of the 
chieftains, indeed, were burnt alive by the philanthropic 
Europeans as a foretaste of the future Inquisition. 
In this way the island of Puna was thoroughly civilized 
and Pizarro enabled to await the end of the rainy 
season in all comfort. 

When this came he crossed to Tumbez, but the report 
of his rivers of blood had got there before him and he 
was refused entrance. But when the guns cracked and 
the bullets whizzed far beyond the walls, when the 


136 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


cavalry, however small in number, rushed up on their 
uncanny, long-legged steeds—the horses Tumbez had 
never seen before—followed by shining coats of mail, 
the Inca warriors, who had never faltered in any combat 
with the savages, lost heart, set fire with their own 
hands to the noble city of Tumbez, and fled to the 
mountains. 

Pizarro entered upon a ruined heap of former glory 
and found but few houses with a roof left to shelter him. 

Nor did the booty come up to the greedy hopes of 
the victorious Spaniards. 

The fugitives had probably taken the greater part of 
their treasures with them or quickly sunk what they 
had to leave in canals and reservoirs. In addition to 
this disappointment, the day had by no means passed 
without dealing many a blow to the Spaniards and 
Pizarro’s brother, Hernando, was amongst the severely 
wounded. Once again the adventurers’ courage failed 
them as they began to grumble that the golden temples 
of Tumbez had not contained what they hoped. They 
even demanded that Pizarro should take them back 
to Panama but, time after time, news came of hidden 
treasures in the interior of the country. The coast- 
dwellers thought the quickest way to get rid of their 
troublesome visitors was to push them farther inland, 
where possibly they hoped that the Inca’s troops would 
manage to destroy them. 

Pizarro, too, was anxious to move on with all speed. 
He purposely dispatched the ships to fetch reinforce- 
ments to deprive his own company of the possibility 
of returning home, then, leaving behind in Tumbez a 
small garrison to plunder the neighbourhood to their 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 137 


heart’s content, he himself set out on that unparalleled 
march into the interior to meet Atahuallpa. 

His idea was to offer him assistance against his 
brother and, in this way, to gain supremacy himself. 

After the monk, Vicente de Valverde, with deceitful 
words had exhorted the garrison to treat the Indians 
with Christian humanity—that was, to butcher them 
in Christian fashion—the start was made. ; 

Pizarro’s little host—an ever-decreasing tiny company 
—marched up the valley of the Chira stream. 

Even if a few stragglers and some volunteers from 
Nicaragua had joined him during his stay on the island 
of Puna, he had preferred to leave behind in Tumbez 
all those of whose loyalty he was not absolutely sure, 
and thus it was with no more than sixty-seven horsemen 
and one hundred and ten foot-soldiers that he ventured 
to start. Their equipment, too, was by no means 
satisfactory, not nearly all had firearms, some only 
crossbows and the rest halberds and swords. By then, 
Pizarro doubtless knew, by report, the excellent organiza- 
tion of the Inca realm, nor could he doubt that 
Atahuallpa was fully cognizant not only of all his 
movements but of all his deeds of cruelty and the 
destruction of Tumbez, although he had now given his 
followers the strictest orders to refrain from plunder 
of any kind. 

His first move was to send out experienced men to 
do their utmost to make peace with the curacas of the 
neighbouring districts. 

He met, too, with a good reception in some villages 
and report goes that an embassy from Cuzco came to 
him with a request from Huascar for his help against 


138 THE WORLD QF THE INCAS 


his step-brother and a promise of great stores of 
gold. 

How just was the Inca’s estimate of the avaricious 
Spanish character! Unfortunately there is no record 
of Pizarro’s answer; it was doubtless some diplomatic 
subterfuge, for to help the weaker side was certainly 
not one of his objects in life. 

And fresh trouble was already brewing in his own 
camp. The excellent Inca roads, considerably better 
than any roads in Spain at that time, the order, the 
food-magazines standing everywhere in readiness, the 
Inca soldiers assembled round them, who certainly 
opened the doors willingly enough yet watched with 
grim reserve all the Spaniards’ doings—all this was 
calculated to arouse in many the suspicions that they 
were being led open-eyed into a trap of some sort. 

Pizarro noticed their fears and called his company 
together, feeling it was better to have few rather than 
malcontents. He told them the garrison left behind 
in Tumbez had sent to beg for reinforcements ; if any 
of them no longer wished to march on farther, they 
could now return without scruple or loss of honour, 
whilst those who made up their minds to follow him 
must, without hesitation, burn all their boats. 

Once more five horsemen and four foot-soldiers left 
him, so that his company now numbered sixty-two 
cavalry, one hundred and six infantry, twenty crossbow- 
men, with the addition of two field-pieces. 

The valley of the Rio de Piura, which they now 
entered, was a beautiful region where they found most 
carefully cultivated fields, gay orchards, an excellent 
high road bordered by shady trees, with rest-houses and 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 139 


good magazines at short intervals and springs of 
bubbling water brought here by an elaborate irrigation 
system. 

Such high roads certainly made marching an easy 
matter, but they were no less a sure sign of the advanced 
civilization of this mighty kingdom. 

And in front of them lay the snow-covered peaks of 
the Andes with these wonderful roads winding upward 
round their slopes. 

In the village of Sana an embassy arrived from 
Atahuallpa. The import of their message too is 
uncertain ; some reports state that the Inca invited 
the Spaniards to come to his camp, others write that 
he warned Pizarro to return to the coast with all 
speed, to restore his booty and to leave the country 
“if he set any value upon his eyes and teeth.”’ 

Pizarro’s answer alone is certain: that he came as 
the messenger of the King of Spain, the most powerful 
ruler of the whole world, and that he was prepared to 
enter into an alliance with him against his brother 
Huascar. 

Probably he had already said the same to Huascar’s 
messengers! At any rate, he marched forward without 
waiting for an answer. 

Now for several days their course led them through 
the desert region of Sechura; here, for the first time, 
they found no water, as this district was not yet under 
cultivation, but, instead, they came upon some strong 
townships, although empty both of men and stores. 

It was an evil omen. This was the home of wild 
people, only lately brought under the Inca’s rule, still 
carrying on the old idol-worship and offering human 


140 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


sacrifices. They did not receive the Spaniards in an 
unfriendly way, for Pizarro, of course, had promised to 
free them from the Inca’s hated yoke. 

Hernando Pizarro succeeded in capturing some Inca 
soldiers who refused, however, to give any information 
as to the strength of the army. This in no way non- 
plussed a contemporary of the Inquisition, and Hernando 
straightway stretched the poor Indians on the rack, 
until torture broke their resolute silence. 

In this way he learnt that Atahuallpa had pitched a 
camp of picked soldiers a few miles from the fortress 
Caxamarca and was there waiting for the Spaniards, 
whom he intended to destroy, root and branch. 

A pleasant prospect for the little company, but 
Pizarro, immediately his brother Hernando brought the 
news, as his only reply, took his troops across the river 
on to the side occupied by the enemy, and then, in very 
deed, burnt his boats by destroying the bridges over 
which they passed. 

To begin with, they still had the good Inca road 
beneath their feet, but as soon as the foot of the moun- 
tains was reached they came to a parting of the ways. 

The well-made high road went on to Cuzco, but the 
Inca’s camp was only reached by a mountain path cut 
out of the rock, with no rest-houses and no food- 
magazines, but, instead, beetling crags, bottomless 
precipices and deep, mysterious forests in which the 
enemy could well lie in ambush. Pizarro himself led 
the vanguard. What an iron constitution this man 
of sixty must have had, and his elder brother Hernando 
no less ! 


Often the road was nothing but rough steps without 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 141 


a railing along the side of some horrible abyss. Riding, 
of course, was out of the question—it was indeed 
unknown amongst the Incas—and each of the horse- 
soldiers had to drag his terrified steed by the bridle 
after him. 

The Spaniards marched on, gloomy and reluctant, 
but unable to turn back, with Francisco Pizarro in the 
van, whilst Hernando, even more cruel in temperament, 
brought up the rear. A small handful of determined 
Incas at this point could have easily put an end to the 
adventurers, but Atahuallpa had planned otherwise. 
He wished to have them in his camp and after they 
had seen all the glory of his power, his judgment should 
fall upon them. 

He did not know Pizarro ! 

At last, after a long and terrible march, they reached 
the top. Not an Inca had they seen, only a few llamas 
had crossed the stony wilderness in hurried flight. 
Here, on the summit, icy mountain winds raged round 
a stone tower. What builder could have put it together 
so well? The lower part was hewn out of the living 
rock and the upper story formed of massive blocks 
of stone. 

Even the great fires they kindled barely thawed 
their frozen limbs and the bare feet of the servants, 
torn by the sharp sedges that completely covered the 
mountain sides, were sore and bleeding. Yet the 
orange-coloured lichen that grew in great patches gave 
the idea of wide stretches covered with glistening gold. 

Another royal embassy! Atahuallpa sent them ten 
llamas and a message to say how he was looking forward 
to the arrival of his foreign visitors and to beg that he 


142 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


might hear when he was to expect them, in order to 
prepare a worthy reception. Pizarro tried to cross- 
question the messenger as to the strength of the Inca 
army, but the man kept his own counsel as to that 
and only described the terrible treatment Atahuallpa 
had meted out to Huascar’s relatives in Cuzco. He 
evidently wished to intimidate the conquistador by this 
description of his master’s cruelties, but Pizarro remained 
unmoved. 

““T am glad Atahuallpa is a hero, and why should 
Huascar’s fate trouble me? But I am the messenger 
of a much mightier monarch than Atahuallpa. Look 
at my few followers. A small number of them were 
enough to lay your city of Tumbez in ruins, and every 
captain of my master’s with fewer soldiers than I have 
has conquered greater kingdoms than yours. Go back 
to the Inca. Tell him I have come to win him for 
our almighty God. If he is peaceably inclined, I offer 
him friendship and will leave him on his throne. In 
that case I will only pass through your land as a friend 
and leave it again. If he desires war—well, I do not 
need to fear him, but he will rue it.” 

Bold words these were for an adventurer with a few 
exhausted followers in the very midst of a strange 
land, but they achieved their aim, for the Inca’s mes- 
senger returned home, filled with amazement and fear. 

At their next stopping-place a fresh herald arrived 
with llamas and gifts but, simultaneously with him, 
one of Pizarro’s spies returned with the news that 
Caxamarca was deserted by all its inhabitants and 
that a great military camp had been set up close to 
the town. 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 143 


Pizarro descended on the other side of the pass, so 
that he was now in the centre of the plateau. A wide, 
fruitful plain extended on both sides of a noble river. 
In the midst of cultivated fields, bearing testimony to 
both diligence and prosperity, lay the houses of Caxa- 
marca, but on the other side, only very few miles 
distant, lay the camp along the mountain slopes. 
Chronicle-writers describe it as five miles long, forming 
a town of itself with its regular, clean tents, in the 
midst of which the Inca’s quarters in their distinctive 
splendour were plainly discernible. 

Even Pizarro was startled. That was no Indian 
camp but a trained, well-ordered war-camp, and the 
handful of strangers who had presumed to declare war 
against such a force began to feel both anxious and 
frightened. 

But of this Pizarro gave no sign. He looked over to 
the camp, then calmly gave the order to start, and on 
the evening of November 15, 1532, he made his entry 
into the completely deserted Caxamarca. 

It was an uncomfortable position—the desolate town, 
with its wide streets and carefully kept squares, great 
palaces built in a triangle and, towering over everything, 
two strong fortresses which were built more solidly 
than anything they had ever seen, but—not a single 
human being ! 

Pizarro ordered his men to await under arms a 
message from the Inca, but everything remained quiet 
in the war-camp above. So Hernando Pizarro decided 
to ride over with a picked company of the bravest. 
A splendid road led right into the camp, where Inca 
soldiers stood before every tent, looking in unfriendly 


144 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


amazement at the strange steeds and the armed riders, 
but no one lifted his lance or uttered a word. 

Before one of the largest tents some hundreds of 
soldiers stood assembled, all with their richest plumes 
on their heads, whilst, in the midst, on a low golden 
chair, covered with cushions, sat Atahuallpa, easily 
recognizable by the red fringe over his brow. Beside 
him stood some Virgins of the Sun holding a rug which 
they put over the Inca when he wished to be covered, 
but at the moment they had drawn it aside. The Inca 
sat in silence with downcast eyes, not honouring the 
strangers with a single glance. Not even when Hernando 
de Soto, one of Pizarro’s loyal adherents, began by 
announcing the arrival of the Spaniards, did the Inca 
either move or speak. And only when Hernando 
introduced Pizarro as his brother and general did 
Atahuallpa raise his head with a sinister look in his 
eyes. He said in a haughty tone that the Spaniards 
had been guilty of innumerable crimes, had cast his 
chieftains into chains, although he, too, had succeeded 
in killing three of the Spaniards. 

Hernando Pizarro answered, shaking his head proudly : 
“That is not true! No Indian is capable of killing a 
Christian. We come, however, as friends, and will 
help you against Huascar. Ten Spanish horsemen are 
able to destroy a whole Inca army.”’ 

Evidently the brothers resembled each other in pride 
of speech. 

The Inca smiled at his word; tall gold cups of 
tshitsha were handed to the Spaniards, who emptied 
them, though with repugnance. Then Soto thought it 
advisable to give the Inca a specimen of his skill on 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 145 


horseback by galloping wildly a few times across the 
square. Atahuallpa had never before seen a horse, 
but he did not once look up, although he had some 
of his people beheaded, then and there, before the eyes 
of the Spaniards because they had nervously retreated 
out of the horse’s way. Then he said proudly: 
“ Although you have come as ravaging enemies into 
my land, I will forget all and to-morrow visit your 
camp with some of my nobles. You may live in the 
town where you will, only beware of entering the 
fortress.,”’ 

Pedro Pizarro, by the way, gives a different version 
of the answer. According to him it ran: ‘‘ You shall 
repay me for all the evil you have done, and, above all, 
you shall restore all that you have stolen.” 

At any rate, the messengers came back somewhat 
dispirited to Caxamarca, and reported that more than 
thirty thousand well-armed warriors were standing all 
ready up there, more than two hundred for every 
Spanish head ! 

Pizarro commanded his soldiers to keep under arms 
through the night and, when he took counsel with his 
brothers in the darkness, he formed the desperate plan 
which was, with one blow, to gain him the mastery of 
the whole Inca kingdom. 

No night attack disturbed the Spaniards’ rest and 
on the next day a messenger came to say the Inca was 
on his way. 

The Inca army now took up its position in a wide 
circle round the town, whilst Pizarro had the most 
beautiful of the palaces arranged for the Inca’s recep- 
tion: The cavalry were told to mount and hide them- 

10 


146 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


selves on horseback in the different halls of the 
building ; he kept twenty reliable men close at hand 
and pointed the two field-pieces, whose use was unknown 
to the Inca, full on the hostile camp. 

Atahuallpa, surrounded by his chief subjects, ap- 
proached in solemn state. Hundreds of servants swept 
the road before him, hundreds followed the imperial 
litter in gayest of raiment waving feather fans; before 
the Inca dancing maidens tripped gaily along, and 
behind came his nobles, also in their litters, whilst five 
thousand fighting men brought up the rear. 

As the sun was setting they reached the chief square 
of Caxamarca, where the Inca soldiers massed up round 
their master. 

First Valverde, the monk, stepped forward and in a 
long speech, repeated by interpreters, he told the Inca 
the history of Christ and that the vicegerent of the 
redeemer living in Rome at the partition of the lands of 
the earth had apportioned the realm of Tahuantinsuyu 
to the King of Spain. He exhorted Atahuallpa to 
embrace the Christian faith for, if he refused, they 
would make war upon him and overthrow his temples. 

The honest monk certainly showed no less boldness 
of speech than the Pizarro brothers, and the Inca 
listened in silence. 

Then shaking his head he said: ‘ Far be it from 
me to submit to strangers. Christ has no message 
for me. I acknowledge the all-powerful Sun as creator 
of the world. Who has told you what you have just 
said ?”’ 

The monk showed him the Bible ; Atahuallpa took it 
and turned over the leaves which conveyed nothing 


WAR BETWEEN BROTHERS 147 


to him then threw it to the ground, saying: ‘‘ This 
thing tells me nothing.” 

Pizarro sprang to his feet and hastily tore his gay 
cloak off his coat of mail—the sign agreed upon before- 
hand ; the twenty men of the bodyguard rushed upon 
the Inca, with a blare of trumpets the cavalry burst 
from their hiding-places in the palace, the field-pieces 
thundered forth and the merciless Spaniards shot their 
guns into the astounded multitude, slashing and cutting 
down all they touched, whilst the pious Christian monk 
cried in loud, inspiring tones : 

“Beat down the heathen! Strike boldly! I absolve 
you from all sin.”’ 

The terrified Incas, who had come without weapons, 
were crowded together in a mass so dense that even 
the walls gave way in places under the pressure, and 
into this mass the Spaniards passed hewing and 
slashing. 

Not a single Inca raised a finger in self-defence, for 
the discipline of these men was so incredible that no 
one would make such an attempt until their emperor 
gave the word of command. 

But Pizarro, in shameful disregard of the first law of 
hospitality, had, with his own hands, dragged him from 
his golden chair and his loyal followers, who tried to 
protect his sacred person paid for their effort by 
instant death, without mercy. 

The Spaniards fell upon the Inca like bloodthirsty 
monsters, tore off royal regalia and garments and would 
have murdered him if Pizarro, who had his own reasons 
for preserving his life, had not rescued him from their 
hands. 


148 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Outside, however, the field-pieces were dealing out 
terrible destruction amongst the soldiers, pressing 
forward to the town, and when the sun set on this 
16th of August which ended so fatally for the Inca 
kingdom, more than two thousand Inca dead covered 
the terrible battle-field. 

The mad scene of slaughter had lasted a bare half- 
hour; blood-bespattered, with heaving breasts and 
faces distorted with wildest passions, the Spaniards 
stood gazing on their victims. 

Pizarro ordered the city gates to be closed and a watch 
to be kept all night. | 

If kindly night had not put an end to the unspeakable 
slaughter, Xeres declares that all the thirty thousand 
Incas would have met their death before the mouths 
of the Christian field-pieces. 

Atahuallpa, who silently submitted to his fate, was 
bound and imprisoned in one of the rooms of the palace, 
and whilst noble blood ran like water through the streets 
and the Spaniards wiped their gory hands on their 
victims’ costly garments, the monk held a service of 
thanksgiving to God. 

The wildest, most incredible feat of daring had 
succeeded ! A handful of adventurers had captured the 
mighty Inca in the very midst of his host of faithful 
followers and a few hundred men had taken by surprise 
and overcome the gigantic army. The cunning Spaniards, 
in their thirst for gold, had in half an hour utterly 
destroyed the mighty Inca realm, already weakened by 
a fratricidal war. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE RUIN OF PARADISE 


T was indeed not unmixed Inca blood that flowed 

in Atahuallpa’s veins, nevertheless he bore his 
captivity with proud dignity. Pizarro was sensible 
enough not to humiliate him too greatly, since the 
Inca army was still powerful outside Caxamarca., His 
first task, too, was to satisfy the rapacity of his followers 
by plundering the Inca’s camp and Atahuallpa’s 
dwelling, the most beautiful house the Spaniards had 
ever seen, with its red and white wall-hangings and 
ceilings of painted cedarwood. Atahuallpa was a man 
of great personal cleanliness, so that even here, in the 
war-camp, he had his large, stone bath, supplied with 
hot water brought from some thermal source and with 
cold from a mountain spring, taps above the bath 
regulating the flow of both pipes—a wonderful provision 
of hot and cold water in the Inca camp! 

The supply of garments made from the choicest 
vicuna wool was so great that an eye-witness reports : 
“Even after all the Spaniards had supplied their wants 
to their utmost satisfaction, the store showed no 
appreciable diminution.”’ The gold, too, that was 


found in the camp, in the town of Caxamarca and in 
149 


150 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


the Inca’s tent reached the value of eighty thousand 
pesos de ovo, an amount calculated to turn the brains of 
poverty-stricken conquistadores. 

The Inca soldiers were disarmed. Pizarro, ‘* The 
Cruel,’’ was kinder than the others, for he refused to 
follow his friends’ advice to kill all, or at least to cut 
off their right hands, and contented himself with giving 
them and the five thousand captive wives and maidens 
as servants to his soldiers. The poor acilias! Gomora 
states that they were sad but obedient to the Spaniards. 
What else could these unfortunate women be, threatened 
as they were by sword and lash ? 

Many of their conquerors, who, at home, had per- 
formed the most menial duties, now possessed several 
hundred slaves, both men and women, and Pizarro 
himself, the swineherd of yore, found himself the 
lord of a great realm and, so to speak, literally wallowing 
in gold. 

Atahuallpa, with keen insight into the character of 
his conquerors, felt that the main object of their desires 
was gold, far more than his conversion. 

Standing opposite Pizarro in the great palace-hall, 
he offered a ransom, and, in reply to the Spaniard’s 
query as to what he could offer, he said : 

“TI will cover the whole of this floor with gold.” 

As the Spaniard smiled incredulously, Atahuallpa 
raised his arm as far as he could reach and, drawing a 
red mark on the wall, he answered : 

“TI will fill the whole room with golden vessels up to 
here, provided you will not destroy them.” » 

Squier reports that on his travels the hall (which has 
been preserved) and the mark were shown to him. 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 151 


Pizarro agreed. How could he more easily gain 
immeasurable treasures and who would force him, 
later on, to keep his promise to the Inca ? 

Atahuallpa, however, trusted his word and described 
the wealth of Cuzco—the gold-lined walls of Inca 
Huanya’s palace, the treasures of the Sun-Temple, and 
the thousands of massive bars of unworked gold that 
lay in its forecourt. 

Such descriptions well-nigh turned the brain of the 
greedy conqguistadores, Pizarro even struck off the 
Inca’s shackles and left him not only free to wander 
about the rooms allotted to him, but allowed his 
favourite wife to share his captivity. But, in return 
for these favours, Atahuallpa was to send immediately 
for the gold, whilst Pizarro pledged his word to set 
him free as soon as it was paid. 

With a nod of assent the Inca replied: ‘“‘ My mes- 
sengers can be in Cuzco in five days, yours would take 
three times as long.”’ 

Pizarro now had one of the buildings converted into 
a chapel, where frequent masses were said and where 
the monk, Valverde, was pleased to grant absolution 
to those who had assassinated men in their thousands. 

Pizarro proudly proclaimed : 

“We good Christians are full of kindness and mercy 
to our prisoners.” 

He sent, however, secret messengers to the coast to 
announce his success and at the same time to urge 
all newly arrived adventurers to join him at once. 

When Atahuallpa saw him also carefully putting the 
town into a state of defence, he said with a smile: 

“No bird in the whole realm dare fly against my 


152 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


will, no leaf rustle on the trees, but how can I rouse 
my soldiers in my defence as long as I am in your 
power ?”’ 

Poor Inca, with your candour you were certainly no 
match in cunning diplomacy for your unscrupulous 
destroyer ! 

But few days elapsed before the loads of gold began 
to reach the town; on some days indeed they exceeded 
in value sixty thousand #esos de oro and included jugs 
weighing more than half a hundredweight. All was 
taken to the palace and stored in that carefully guarded 
hall. 

Meantime Huascar sent messengers to Pizarro offering 
him double the gold promised by Atahuallpa if he 
would help him to recover his throne. 

Again Pizarro played off the half-brothers, one 
against the other. He told Atahuallpa of Huascar’s 
offer and declared he would invite the latter to Caxa- 
marca to attend a court of inquiry as to which had the 
best right to the crown. 

This made Atahuallpa anxious. He still harboured 
the old hatred against his brother who was, after all, 
the rightful heir. So, under pretext of sending for 
more loads of gold, he dispatched a few trusty followers 
who seized the captive Huascar and threw him to meet 
a miserable death in a rushing mountain torrent. But, 
before he died, he called down the vengeance of the 
gods on Atahuallpa. 

Nothing could have suited Pizarro better. He called 
Atahuallpa to task and as he, of course, denied all 
guilt in the matter, Pizarro gave vent to righteous 
indignation, saying : 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 153 


‘“‘T shall most sternly avenge any fratricide and if I 
find that you, Atahuallpa, are guilty, I shall mete out 
my judgment on you.” 

What better pretext could he find to get rid of 
Atahuallpa too in the future? The last of the true 
Inca blood had gone with Huascar; Atahuallpa had 
spared him that trouble ! 

Huascar was barely six and twenty years of age and 
had as yet no son. Even a decent burial was denied 
the poor, soft-hearted youth, for the wild torrent kept 
his body hidden in its depths. 

Shortly after this, messengers came from the coast to 
bring word that Almagro had landed with one hundred 
and fifty soldiers and eighty-four horses and was prepared 
to start at once for the interior. Before the capture 
of the Inca, Almagro’s help would certainly have been 
most acceptable, but now that he was only coming in 
time to share the spoils, Pizarro sent special couriers to 
tell him to remain at the coast where he would join 
him in a few weeks with the gold. 

Almagro’s message, however, made him use every 
means to hasten the delivery of the gold. He and his 
nobles even went so far as to suspect the Inca—who 
doubtless was doing all in his power to regain his freedom 
—of intentional delay in the matter. Moreover, they 
lived in daily dread of some hidden plot on the part 
of the Incas, for they could not comprehend how the 
mighty ruler of such a nation could actually refrain 
from offering resistance to a few Spaniards. How 
indeed should Pizarro and his people understand that 
anyone—especially despised Indians—could keep a 
promise and trust another’s plighted word! For 


154 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Atahuallpa trusted Pizarro’s promise to restore his 
freedom as soon as he had paid the gold and therefore, 
for his part, kept his bond to forbid his people to rescue 
him by force. 

The Spaniards, however, grew increasingly uneasy, 
and Pizarro sent messengers and emissaries with full 
powers in every direction to guard the treasure-transport 
on the one hand and, on the other, to spy out the state 
of affairs in the country. 

Hernando Pizarro himself was amongst these, to 
Atahuallpa’s regret, for although this, the eldest of the 
Pizarros, was the one most hated for his arrogance by 
the Spaniards, yet he understood best how to treat 
the Inca. It is also possible that Hernando, as the 
only legitimate and therefore the only educated member 
of the whole family, looked with contempt upon the 
pack of adventurers surrounding his brother and was 
impressed by the royal dignity with which Atahuallpa 
bore his misfortunes, 

Atahuallpa had indeed gone so far as to issue com- 
mands to receive the Spaniards everywhere as guests 
and the conquistador’s messengers, now starting to 
search the country for its treasures, were carried along 
the roads in litters raised on the shoulders of the Inca’s 
own bearers. 

He had no idea that every step they took into the 
country did but increase the insatiable greed of these 
rapacious men, until it knew no bounds. 

Like the Aztecs in Mexico the Incas were unable to 
understand this craving for gold. To them gold was 
a bright adornment for the temple, a useful metal for 
articles of use or ornament and nothing more. They 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 155 


neither had nor knew money, so that gold had abso- 
lutely no value as coinage, and this mad thirst for it 
was beyond their comprehension ; it had no attractions 
even for their poorest citizen, the hatunruna. 

Hernando Pizarro then started across the mountains 
to the old sacrificial temple of Pachacamac to take 
possession of the treasures hidden there. He was again 
struck with the greatest admiration for the excellent 
paved road leading over the mountain range, the 
marvellous irrigation system, the beautiful fields that 
their owners’ industry had turned into a paradise where 
they reaped harvests almost larger than their store- 
houses could hold. 

We ask, in wonder, how it was that none of these 
men felt any pangs of conscience at the thought that 
their one aim was to destroy all this in the blindest 
of greed and folly. Why did they not rather preserve 
it for their own use if they felt they had conquered it, 
making the Incas their vassals, perhaps, but preserving 
their strength, skill and intelligence, instead of wiping 
them out from the face of the earth. 

Hernando Pizarro entered Pachacamac, the site of a 
celebrated votive and oracle temple, to which, year after 
year, pilgrims repaired with most abundant offerings. 
Surely, then, masses of gold would be found here? 
But the Villjac Vmu who, almost equal in rank with 
his colleague in Cuzco, had the sanctuary under his 
protection, was more quick-witted than Atahuallpa. 
He refused admittance to Hernando Pizarro and when 
he, of course—for how was he likely to respect an Inca 
sanctuary—burst open the doors he found only a few 
small vessels ; the rest of his treasures the Villjac Vmu 


156 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


had bestowed in some safe hiding-place, and not till 
many years later was a portion of the buried gold 
discovered. 

Pizarro, in anger, destroyed the temple and by his 
orders the image of the god, carved in wood, was 
smashed to pieces and burnt. 

The Incas looked on in horror and gazed with terror 
at the mysterious cross which Hernando had erected 
amongst the temple ruins. 

They were overcome by indescribable fear. Their 
god Inti, the almighty creator, had permitted these 
foreign men to lay waste his sanctuary. Were the 
foreigners greater than Inti? Was this terrible god 
and his sign of a bare, threatening cross mightier then 
than Inti? 

These good, faithful, childlike souls! What would 
have become of Christendom if, in the Great War, 
which devastated Europe, every nation had given up 
the Christians’ God whenever He, in silence, suffered 
other Christians to lay waste His churches? Such 
curious disunion as this no longer upsets modern 
humanity in its religious views as it did the childish 
Incas, who now felt reverential fear of the demoniacal 
power of their conquerors. 

Francisco Pizarro, meantime, experienced an un- 
pleasant surprise in the sudden advent of his ally 
Almagro. The two leaders now devoted their attention 
to sending away the gold. Why heed the promise they 
had made to Atahuallpa not to break up the precious 
vessels ? The Inca goldsmiths themselves had to 
destroy their own marvellous handiwork. Wonderful 
vases, great golden fountains with uprising spray of 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 157 


silver water—everything went to the smelting furnaces 
and was changed into what the Incas considered useless 
metal bars. On an average, the value of the treasures 
melted daily amounted to about forty-five thousand 
pounds sterling. 

The messengers, sent to Cuzco, now returned with 
accounts of further marvels. On one day they had 
taken down from the walls of a single Inca palace seven 
hundred gold plates, each worth £400; their booty 
from one palace on another day reached the value 
of £150,000. They made no mention, however, of the 
fact that the messengers had abused the confidence 
and hospitality shown by the inhabitants, in their 
anxiety for their ruler’s safety, by defiling the Holy 
of Holies in the Temple of the Sun and violating the 
virgins in the convent of Acchiahuazt. 

The incredible had become fact ; the hall in the palace 
was filled with gold ingots up as far as Atahuallpa’s 
red line, and even the conguistadores themselves esti- 
mated the enormous booty at about four million pounds 
sterling. | 

The Emperor of Spain received as his fifth share 
more than two hundred and sixty thousand pesos de 
ovo, each of the Pizarros nearly £50,000 and each of 
the soldiers almost half that sum. 

As a natural result the wildest of orgies began at 
once ! 

Enormous sums were gambled away, and an almost 
comical misfortune overtook several on the march to 
the coast. The packs of gold were laden on to the 
llamas’ backs but, as soon as the creatures reached 
the mountains, they at once heard the call of the wild 


158 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


and tore away into passes and over rocky crags where 
no startled soldier could possibly follow. Thus thou- 
sands of pounds were irretrievably lost. 

Atahuallpa had kept his word; even Pizarro had to 
own that. Now it was his turn to keep faith with the 
Inca, but of that Pizarro never dreamt. 

He now knew Atahuallpa’s character. Once he was 
free, a single word from him would be enough to set 
all Tahuantinsuyu aflame from end to end. Those 
same Incas who, in obedience to his command, now 
looked on in silent endurance whilst the Spaniards laid 
waste their land would, with so much greater joy, 
gather round his banner to destroy their tormentors. 

No, Atahuallpa must die ! 

What did it matter to break faith with a barbarian ? 
Pizarro had never seriously meant to keepit. Huascar’s 
death must be the pretext, so Atahuallpa was accused 
of his brother’s murder. 

One man and one only amongst the conquistadores 
ventured to condemn the treachery meditated against 
the Inca. Soto—one of the most experienced of 
Pizarro’s followers—went so far as to influence a number 
of the others, and a petition was presented to Pizarro 
in which Soto stated that the King of Spain alone had 
the right to condemn the Inca and he himself was ready 
to escort him to Madrid. 

Soto and his friends were dismissed, unheard, and 
had to leave Atahuallpa to his fate. A court that was 
only a contemptible farce was formed with Almagro 
as presiding judge, supported by the two Pizarro 
brothers, and Atahuallpa was sentenced to death. 

Sentenced, too, on absurd charges of which only one 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 159 


—that of his brother’s murder—was in any way 
justified, and even in this the Spaniards had no right 
of jurisdiction. 

But he was also adjudged worthy of death because 
he had several wives, because he worshipped the Sun- 
God, because he had squandered his treasures to the 
Spaniards’ detriment. 

Pizarro signed the death-warrant, with only a flourish 
of course, since he could not write, and Father Valverde, 
the pious monk, said a more righteous sentence had 
never been pronounced ! 

On August 3, 1533, the funeral pile was built on the 
chief plaza in Caxamarca to burn the Inca as a heretic 
in the presence of his people. 

Atahuallpa mounted the pile with proud dignity, but 
the monk Valverde was not yet satisfied. Cross in 
hand, he came up and again attempted to convert the 
condemned man. What shameful blasphemy it sounded 
on the tongue of this fanatical fiend who called himself 
a Christian priest, as he exhorted Atahuallpa to be 
baptized in his last hour, since the Christian religion 
of brotherly love stood far above the worship of the 
Sun-God ! 

As Atahuallpa stood in unmoved silence, the monk 
had resource to another means of persuasion and 
promised that, if he would submit to baptism, the 
Christian brotherly love would grant him, the murderer, 
death by strangulation rather than by fire. 

Then Atahuallpa bowed an assent and received 
baptism in silence. Valverde gave him the Christian 
name of Francisco, after his conqueror Pizarro, and then 
the Inca was strangled by an iron band. 


160 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


It was not cowardice that had influenced Atahuallpa, 
but, according to the faith of his fathers, any human 
being, burnt alive, lost not only body but immortal 
soul as well. To save this, to awaken at least in the 
Sun-God’s sacred fields above, Atahuallpa became a 
Christian in his hour of death. 

The following night, when the fanatical monk was 
celebrating a funeral mass, no less shameful than 
absurd, in the church he had built, the friends and 
wives of the murdered Inca burst into the building. 

With cries and entreaties they begged for a funeral, 
at least, in accordance with Inca customs. But even 
that was refused under the pretext that a Christian he 
had died and as a Christian must be buried. But, 
spite of all, he was to have one terrible, horrible funeral 
rite which showed how deeply rooted in this people 
was love to their Inca, even to this ruler who was, after 
all, an usurper: several hundred men and women took 
their own lives that they might join their lord and 
master in the fields of the blest. 

Soto returned shortly after the murder of Atahuallpa, 
but after overwhelming Pizarro with the bitterest 
reproaches he left them and went back to Spain in 
disgust. 

Later on, however, this crime was avenged on the 
murderers, no matter whether by Inti, the Sun-God, 
or the Christian God whose name they had so shamefully 
abused. 

Not a single one of them all died a natural death. 

The criminal monk Valverde, Francisco Pizarro and 
Almagro were murdered, Juan Pizarro perished miser- 
ably, Hernando Pizarro was forced in his old age to 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 161 


pine away in a Spanish dungeon and Gonzalo Pizarro 
- met his death at the executioner’s hand. 

In spite of all, however, Atahuallpa was to have his 
Inca funeral, for no sooner had the Spaniards left 
Caxamarca, than his body was exhumed, embalmed 
and taken to Puitu to his father’s tomb. 

Pizarro now resolved to give the kingdom a new 
Inca, one who would help him and, from the vantage- 
ground of descent from the ancient line, be able to keep 
the people quiet. 

He thought he had found such a ruler in Atahuallpa’s 
brother, Tupa Huallpa, who had come of his own 
accord to the Spanish camp. 

He was to be an Inca by the grace of Pizarro, whose 
hand encircled his brow with bovla’s red fringe, an 
Inca who was compelled to pay homage to the Spanish 
flag, an Inca who was carried before the victorious 
army onits march to Cuzco. The Inca soldiers watched 
the procession with sinister looks; the new Inca was 
most certainly not acknowledged by the nation, who, 
indeed, were assembling all of military age in a way 
that boded nothing but ill. 

Who could it be on whom they set their hopes? 
Surely none but the General Chalcuchima, formerly 
Haiun Apu to Inca Atahuallpa. 

The march was almost immediately followed by the 
sudden death of the young Inca ‘‘ by the grace of” 
Pizarro. 

A convenient excuse once more! Of course the guilt 
was laid at the door of the inconvenient Chalcuchima, 
who was said to have poisoned the Inca, because he 


wished to take his place himself. 
11 


162 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


The “court of justice’? that murdered Atahuallpa 
was formed once more and Chalcuchima too was, of 
course, condemned to be burnt alive. This time, 
however, the monk Valverde did not achieve his object. 
When he described in extravagant terms the joys of 
Paradise to Chalcuchima to win his consent to baptism, 
the general asked: ‘ Will Pizarro be in Paradise 
too?” 

And to the monk’s assurance that the great Spaniard 
had certainly earned a special place of honour, Chalcu- 
chima answered : 

‘““Then I have no wish to be there as well.” 

He mounted the funeral pile and amidst the darting 
flames raised his voice in a hymn of praise to the 
ancient gods. 

Inca Manco, Huascar’s brother, really the lawful heir 
to the throne, now received an invitation from Pizarro. 
The cunning Spaniard sought to convince him that he 
was his friend. What better proof could he have 
given than the execution of his two great enemies, 
Atahuallpa and Chalcuchima ? 

Manco believed his deceitful words and he himself 
escorted his deadliest enemy to Cuzco, A year after 
the capture of Atahuallpa, on November 15, 1533, 
Pizarro rode solemnly into the capital with Inca Manco 
at his side. The fine buildings, well-kept streets, the 
universal cleanliness, and, above all, the quarter of 
the city with the Inca palaces, the Sun-Temple and the 
fortress of Saxuahuaman made a tremendous impression 
on the Spanish conquistador. 

One of his company at that time gave the number of 
the inhabitants at two hundred thousand ; even if this 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 163 


was somewhat too large an estimate, yet there is no 
doubt that Cuzco was an important, populous city. 

The Spaniards at once began their work, which was 
to rob and plunder. The gold plates were torn from 
the walls, even the tombs were desecrated and the 
storehouses plundered. All the gold was at once melted 
down. The art-treasures of the Golden Garden, a wonder 
of the world, such as was never seen again, were all 
broken up and thrown into the melting-pot ! 

In spite of the incredible amount of golden treasures, 
exceeding anything to be found in other countries, 
there are scarcely any of the Inca works of art still in 
existence, because the avarice of the conguistadores 
who, of course, were utterly devoid of any artistic 
feeling, melted everything down into square ingots. 

There were now, to be sure, about five hundred 
Spaniards, eager for their share, so although the booty 
in Cuzco was in no way inferior to that in Caxamarca, 
each of them only received about four thousand 
five hundred pounds sterling. 

The Inca’s greatest sacred treasure, the golden image 
of the Sun-God, fell to the portion of an ordinary 
soldier, who by the following night had—gambled it 
away ! 

The temple itself was razed to the ground by the 
fanatic Valverde, the first ‘‘ Bishop of Cuzco.” A 
Christian church was built from its stones, but the 
Golden Garden, as we have already mentioned, was 
broken up and melted, whilst the Virgins of the Sun 
were given over to the arms of the Spanish soldiers, 

Meanwhile false monks sang their Christian masses 
before the temple altars. 


164 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Although its walls were still standing, Cuzco was 
already destroyed ! 

The insolent, undisciplined victors swarmed every- 
where, plundering, robbing, pilfering and murdering. 
The tame llamas were shot in hundreds, the costly 
clothes, which were far too numerous for the conquerors 
to use, were soiled and destroyed, the fields trodden 
underfoot, the water-systems ruined and the fruit-trees 
hewn to the ground. 

A horde of fiends, all mad with their thirst for gold, 
amongst whom the deceitful monks were by no means 
the least guilty, spread over the smiling country. 

The wonder-tale of this land of treasure-trove 
attracted fresh crowds of adventurers to a spot where 
every beggar became a rich man in the twinkling of 
an eye. 

It is true that, even then, evidence was not wanting 
of the havoc wrought by this wholesale destruction. 
The plundering and burning of the food-magazines and 
rest-houses on the lonely mountain roads proved of 
great loss to the new troops, and many a one fell 
exhausted under the burden of gold and precious stones 
which, as a result of the mad slaughter of the tame 
llamas, he now had to carry himself. 

Another farce was enacted on the Haucaypata 
Square at the coronation of Inca Manco. There were 
no golden dishes and drinking-cups to be seen—they 
had all been stolen by the Spaniards or buried by the 
Incas—no Vilyac Vmu to endow the new Inca with 
Inti’s blessing, but instead the unscrupulous monk, 
now “ Bishop ”’ Valverde, and the tyrant Pizarro. 

But, in spite of all, the poor Inca folk—misled and 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 165 


destined to destruction—acclaimed the new Inca with 
shouts of joy. 

But without a moment’s warning Inca Manco dis- 
appeared. Under pretext of fetching for the Spaniards 
a golden statue of his father, of which he alone knew 
the hiding-place, he had left the plundered city of 
Cuzco and did not return. 

Francisco Pizarro had, at this time, gone to the coast 
to lay the foundations of the new capital, Lima, whilst 
Hernando and Juan, his brothers, remained in Cuzco. 

Then occurred—unfortunately too late—what the 
Spaniards had always feared. 

Suddenly all the heights in the neighbourhood of the 
town were covered with the enemy. Inca Manco was 
not the willing slave Pizarro had supposed, and he had 
gathered his people together to fight in desperation. 

The Inca’s watch-fires glowed on every hill and, at 
daybreak, the shell-horns, the drums and reed-pipes 
called Inti’s warriors to their last fight. 

In despair, that lifted him above all minor con- 
siderations, Inca Manco sacrificed his capital with his 
own hands. Fiery arrows flew into the thatched roofs 
of palaces and houses; in a few hours all Cuzco was 
transformed into a sea of fire. 

Yet the Haucaypata Square was too large; for on 
it the Spaniards crowded together, and whilst the 
capital of this ancient kingdom met destruction, at 
once full of horror and solemnity, in the mighty flames, 
enveloping her on every side, they waited, in safety, 
until the fire died out for want of further fuel. 

This sacrifice, too, had been in vain; the Spaniards 
had escaped from the jaws of death ! 


166 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Only the palace of Inca Huiracotsha and the convent 
of the Virgins of the Sun had been spared by the flames. 

Everything else was a waste heap of blackened 
ashes. 

On the seventh day of the siege, Hernando Pizarro 
ventured to storm the fortress of Saxuahuaman, and 
by means of firearms effected an entrance. The place 
of combat was covered with the lifeless bodies of 
numberless Incas, of many Spaniards too, amongst 
them Juan Pizarro killed by the stone from some 
slinger’s hand. . 

The leaders of the Incas made a desperate defence 
and their golden battle-clubs crashed upon the heads 
of all the first-comers, but what could they do against 
their enemies’ field-pieces ? 

The Inca who was defending the fortress for Manco 
sprang upon the highest pinnacle of the tower, lifted 
his hands in supplication to the sun, then leapt over 
the rocky wall into the yawning abyss below ! 

The fortress Saxuahuaman was conquered, yet weeks 
were still to elapse before the Spaniards had achieved 
entire success. 

For five full months the Inca soldiers encompassed 
the town, hoping to accomplish by famine what they 
could not achieve in open battle. 

But that, too, was in vain, for hunger and want began 
to make their way into the besieging army as well. 

No wonder it did; the Spaniards had burnt out the 
full barns and there was no one to refill them; the 
fields lay waste and untilled, the flocks of llamas had 
either been slaughtered or found a way of escape to 
the mountains. 


THE RUIN OF PARADISE 167 


Hernando Pizarro ventured on a sally and succeeded 
in capturing another of Manco’s food-magazines. 

It is true he failed in his first attempt to follow his 
brother’s example with Atahuallpa and to end the war 
by capturing Manco. It was indeed all he could do 
to get undisturbed possession of the town again but— 
even this last contest was at an end. If Manco would 
not have his forces die of hunger, he must disband them. 

One morning the enemy had disappeared, fled into 
the mountains and the road was clear once more. 

Hernando Pizarro himself, tried almost beyond the 
limits of human endurance, hastily left the ashes of 
ruined Cuzco and hurried to the coast. Cuzco was a 
dead city ! 

It is true it still contained enormous treasures, but 
they were hidden—either in walls or under the earth. 

In later times it often happened that a Spaniard 
knocking down some palace wall or digging a hole in 
the court would come all unexpectedly upon a treasure. 
It is said that an apothecary once found gold to the 
value of more than seventy thousand ducats in one of 
the walls of his house. 

A mighty store of treasure, too, no doubt is still hidden 
in swamp, lake or deep abyss waiting for chance to 
reveal its hiding-place. 

Not only was there this great loss of gold, but Manco’s 
last despairing effort cost the lives of forty thousand 
fighting men. 

Manco himself fled into the wild mountain fastnesses, 
whilst the Spaniards completed their work of devasta- 
tion throughout the land. 

A stange fate befell the golden image of the Sun-God 


168 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


Inti. As we have seen, the soldier to whom it was 
apportioned gambled it away that same night. Later 
on it came again into the hands of the Inca royal family, 
but when the last Inca, Tupac Amaru, was executed, 
the Sun-God’s image became once more part of the 
Spaniards’ booty. . 

The Governor at that time, Francisco de Toledo, 
wished to send it to Rome as a present to the Pope, 
but—the ship was sunk. The Sun-God Inti cast his 
earthly image into the waves of the eternal sea, now 
that the Paradise which had grown up under his gentle 
rule was desecrated and destroyed. 


CHAPTER VIII 


WHAT CIVILIZED CHRISTIANS MADE OUT 
OF THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 


APPY Inca kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu ! 

At last, then, the great wisdom and kindness 
of the Christian King of Spain and of his brave generals 
had set free the poor land, which had pined so long 
under the Incas’ barbarism and the pious monks 
hastened, cross in hand, with gentle force to convert 
the perishing souls to the Romish Church where alone 
salvation was to be found. 

Now therefore these poor people, who, to be sure, 
had up till now quite enjoyed their poverty—poverty 
consisting of a well-ordered national constitution, of 
temples and palaces filled with gold, of storehouses 
overflowing with grain and abundant provision of every 
kind; poverty providing everyone with a good and 
certain living, a contented life not without plenty of 
work but free from all anxiety and sure of a comfortable 
old age—these people were to be brought into a state 
of true happiness ! 

It was a pity that these good Inca folk shared much 
the same fate as the horse which his master trained 


not to eat. As soon as he had achieved his aim and the 
169 


170 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


clever steed had given up this foolish habit, which 
did but cause his mater useless expense, the animal 
died. 

And the Inca folk, once they were set free, unfor- 
tunately did likewise. 

We have seen that there were about twelve million 
happy inhabitants in the kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu, 
and they could put an army in the field of three hundred 
thousand men. ... In the year 1603, not a century, 
then, after the glorious “ deliverance,” the last de- 
scendants of the Inca race presented a humble petition 
to their oppressors for some alleviation of their unen- 
durable burdens, and they then numbered five hundred 
and sixty-seven, all told! 

The Inca race is dead. The miserable dirty Indians 
who to-day live in Peru—a state still fighting hard for 
existence—have no connection with the Incas, who were 
ruined and exterminated ! 

As everyone knows, the Bolshevists’ first principle is 
that “‘ everything must be destroyed.” This principle 
the Spaniards thoroughly adopted and thereby proved 
that, under certain conditions, it is indeed easy to 
root out a civilization, but a task of infinite difficulty 
to develop another in its place. Even Pizarro, who 
made earnest endeavours to do so in his old age, did 
not succeed. . 

Of course the stupid Inca people showed amazingly 
little appreciation of the Spaniards’ benefits. They did 
not feel it any honour when Pizarro released the Virgins 
of the Sun—whose purity had been so jealously guarded — 
that the most painful of deaths awaited anyone of their 
countrymen who should violate or seduce one of these 
maidens—from their tiresome vow of chastity and gave 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 171 


them over to his soldiers’ lust. Nor did they rejoice 
when Pizarro took away their fruitful lands and gave 
them to his followers, so that Spanish adventurers, of 
the worst kind, came into possession of immense 
treasures and rich farms. 

The good monks got on better, for crowds of the former 
worshippers in the Sun-Temple bent their heads to 
Christian baptism. 

It cannot, of course, be denied that these good monks 
used methods of conversion, as convincing as they were 
effective. 

A number of Incas were heavily shackled or yoked 
together and brought in hundreds to the baptizing 
priest, who commanded them to throw themselves on 
the ground. A detachment of soldiers with loaded guns 
took up their position in front of them and the leader 
explained to the converts that he should simply shoot 
everyone who should venture to lift his head before 
the sacred sacrament had been administered ! 

Then the monk took up his brush of holy water, pro- 
nounced the baptismal formula and allowed the newly 
made Christians to get up. 

What ingratitude on the part of the Incas not to 
understand such convincing arguments and always to 
return again in secret to their own kindly Sun-God ! 

Well, the Pope in Rome took pity on them! 

As early as 1501 Pope Alexander VI gave the King 
of Spain who was in want of money a considerable 
sum and commissioned him as follows : 

To conquer and acquire the countries and islands of 
the Indies (America), so that every damned and heretic 
soul may be rooted out there, and only the doctrine of 
truth be tolerated. 


172 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


To the delight of the monks, a court of Inquisition 
was, no later than 1571, instituted in the new capital, 
Lima, to carry out this philanthropic edict and the 
country was privileged to see cruel tortures that com- 
pelled the accused by unspeakable suffering to confess 
to heresy or witchcraft, so that they might then be 
sent to the stake and burnt alive. 

Middendorf says: 

The tortures used to compel confessions were of 
three kinds. First: The bottle-jack or pulley, in which 
the accused by means of a rope that bound his hands 
behind his back and ran over a pulley, was drawn up 
to the ceiling whilst heavy iron weights on his feet 
pulled him towards the floor. 

Second: In the bench torture the accused was bound 
hand and foot, stretched over a bench with tourniquets 
round his upper arms, thighs and calves of his legs, a 
funnel forced into his mouth, through which water was 
slowly poured until he felt choked. 

The third torture consisted in fastening the feet in 
stocks, smearing the soles with grease and roasting 
them before a fire. 

The death sentence after confession obtained in this 
way was called in the official language of the Inquisition 
“handing over to the secular power,” since it was 
beneath the dignity of the sacred Court to stain its 
hands with the blood of its victims, a pretence as de- 
ceitful as it was arrogant, for the execution of their 
sentence never shed blood as the condemned were 
either burnt alive or throttled. 

Even the most dreadful Indian tales of Cooper’s, 
with their blood-curdling tortures of the Apaches or 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 178 


Iroquois cannot equal in horror the cruelties perpetrated 
by the blinded fanatics to the honour of the God of 
mercy as they preached the gospel of Christ. 

And then the pious monks, whose first act—as we 
have seen in the case of Father Valverde after the 
taking of Cuzco—was to pull down the costly temples 
and to destroy everything that those they had defeated 
held most sacred, wondered when it happened again 
and again that one of the monks, too, was cruelly 
murdered. 

We will now see what happened after the final con- 
quest of the kingdom of Tahuantinsuyu and the con- 
flagration of the city of Cuzco. 

Hernando Pizarro, the eldest brother, had gone to 
Spain to deliver to the King his share of the booty 
and at the same time to get renewal and extension of 
the powers granted to the conquistadores. 

Even before his departure the mutual relations 
between the adventurers had become very strained. 

Francisco Pizarro, who had had the lion’s share of 
the work, not unjustly now demanded also the lion’s 
share of honour, in which demand his brothers sup- 
ported him—with good reason. 

On the other hand Almagro was very ambitious, and 
even if he had not been there at first nor scrupled to 
leave Pizarro to wrestle with his difficulties single- 
handed, yet he and Luque—now dead—had been the 
two to provide the necessary funds. 

Moreover, Almagro and Hernando Pizarro, both quick 
and haughty in temper, had already long cordially hated 
each other. 

Hernando was, of course, received in Spain with high 


174 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


honours. The King was very pleased to accept the 
new gold-land that fell into his arms without his having 
to stir a finger. Francisco Pizarro was confirmed in 
his office of viceroy, whilst Hernando, Gonzalo and 
Juan Pizarro, the viceroy’s brother, were loaded with 
honours. Then, however, it was decided that Pizarro 
should keep a certain district under his rule but 
Almagro should conquer one lying to the south, the Chili 
of to-day, and in like manner rule it as viceroy. 

In this way the King imagined he had settled the 
dispute between the rivals and Hernando returned to 
America contentedly enough. 

Almagro was already on his way to Chili when the 
news reached him and as he was not certain where 
the new frontier between the rival kingdoms lay, he 
assumed that Cuzco, with its rich store of ruined 
greatness, belonged to him, whereas in reality the old 
capital was part of Pizarro’s domain. 

He started immediately in a northerly direction, and 
when he heard that Inca Manco had risen and was 
besieging Cuzco he decided without a moment’s delay 
to call the enemy he had but lately oppressed to help 
him against his former allies. 

However, the Inca declined; in fact he attacked 
Almagro’s ambassador and vanguard, was himself 
repulsed and sullenly withdrew into the most gloomy 
and impassable ravines, where he made use of every 
opportunity to inflict harm on the Spaniards by raids 
and skirmishes. 

Almagro marched against Cuzco, where Hernando 
Pizarro was encamped. Spaniard now opposed 
Spaniard! Hernando was taken by surprise and did 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 175 


not dare to give battle at once, but in different parts 
of the town the few remaining inhabitants had an 
opportunity of seeing the Europeans at enmity with 
one another. 

In the night of April 8, 1537, however, Almagro 
attacked his former friends. After a short resistance, 
the two brothers Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro, whose 
house a chance shot had set aflame, were forced to give 
themselves up. 

It was now Almagro’s turn to hesitate. He did not 
follow his friends’ advice to put the two Pizarros to 
death at once, but contented himself with keeping them 
as prisoners. 

This was the beginning of another frightful war 
between brothers, this time amongst the Spaniards. 
Gonzalo Pizarro managed to escape and whenever 
Spaniard met Spaniard, the Incas of course were not 
far off but dashed down from the mountain heights 
to disappear again as suddenly, when they had robbed 
and murdered whatever they could lay their hands on. 

It was indeed no wonder that Spanish cruelty had 
turned even the natural Inca gentleness into fury in 
this last struggle for revenge on the part of a dying 
people. 

Gonzalo Pizarro was forced once more into hostilities 
against Inca Manco. He would have liked to catch 
him by craft as his brother Francisco had Atahuallpa, 
so sent messengers to invite him to an interview, but 
Manco was too quick-witted not to see through his cun 
ning plot and straightway killed the embassy. 

The civilized European, Gonzalo Pizarro, took a most 
horrible revenge. Inca Manco had a favourite wife of 


176 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


exceptional beauty who had fallen into Gonzalo’s 
hands. He had her stripped naked, bound to a tree, 
where she was struck with whips and pierced by arrows 
until at last a lingering death released her from this 
torture. What must this heroic Inca woman, as she 
bore in silence such mortal anguish, have thought of the 
European soldier ? 

Inca Manco, however, did not come out from the 
mountains again, and on every side the rich farms were 
now handed over to Spanish adventurers and turned 
into military colonies ! 

Pizarro and Almagro were still at enmity, but the 
viceroy really feared that continual civil war would 
completely weaken the young colony and also his 
brother Hernando was still in his rival’s power. His 
thoughts therefore flew to intrigue as the readiest 
means of help and one which, to his temperament, 
seemed the most natural. 

He, therefore, with the show of a strong man’s 
generosity sent word to Almagro that he would give 
way and leave him in possession of Cuzco until another 
decision should come from the King of Spain, whilst 
Almagro in return must set free his brother Hernando 
who, however, to avoid any further disputes, should at 
once return home to Spain. 

Almagro was old and, unlike Pizarro, whose iron 
constitution still defied all exertion, he was worn out 
with the privations of the last campaign. He therefore 
agreed. But Hernando was barely at liberty again 
before he and his royal brother had entirely forgotten 
the promise they had given. 

Fresh troops marched up and Hernando made an 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 177 


unexpected sally upon his hated rival. Orgonez, the 
commander-in-chief, was killed and the sick Almagro 
taken prisoner. Hernando showed himself less soft- 
hearted than Almagro had been and had his prisoner 
strangled in his tent without delay. 

On this occasion at any rate, the two Pizarros were 
perfectly well aware that they had exceeded their 
rightful powers, but—well, it was done now! Fran- 
cisco, without mercy, put down every one of Almagro’s 
followers, whilst Hernando with all speed ransacked 
the rich silver mines of Charcas with the intention of 
afterwards really returning to Spain. 

There was no denying he was now old and had made 
things too hot for himself in Peru, but in Spain he 
hoped to be helped by the almighty power of gold in 
the great treasures he was carrying thither. After all, 
what would the King trouble about Almagro, if Hernando 
brought him gold? In 1540 he actually embarked, not, 
however, without warning his brother against revenge 
at the hand of the son whom Almagro had left behind. 

But on his arrival in Spain, he received an unpleasant 
surprise! Almagro’s friends had not been idle and, 
after all, what he had done was nothing more nor less 
than cunning murder. 

So, instead of being allowed an audience by the 
King, he was marched at once into the dungeon which 
he was only to leave twenty years later, as a broken old 
man of nearly ninety. 

Pizarro, the viceroy, had taken up his residence in 
Lima and now, old marauder though he was, he made 
an earnest effort to restore order in the country that 
his soldiers had laid waste. The first lust for gold was 

12 


178 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


over and the Inca treasures which had proved such 
easily won booty were dispersed and, for the most part, 
wasted. 

It is true that, at this time, there were in the country 
rich men who had never dreamt that they, whom their 
own land disowned, would one day eat and drink from 
golden dishes and cups. Yet the land itself was waste 
and barren, the Inca settlements destroyed, their water 
system broken up, the fields their industry had culti- 
vated fallen into waste land, the once great orderly 
centres of population replaced by wide stretches of 
entirely deserted country, where only the ruins of former 
buildings and thousands of bleaching bones bore testi- 
mony to murdered Incas and to the prosperity of earlier 
times. | 

Pizarro sat in Lima trying to mend what was long 
past repair, but in Chili there sat Diego Almagro, the 
murdered man’s son, hatching plans of vengeance. 

The young Almagro was not content with plans only. 
Eighteen resolute men under the leadership of a certain 
Juan de Herradas had crept into Lima to assassinate 
Pizarro. 

Pizarro was having a meal with his friends as the 
conspirators hastened through the streets of his capital ; 
they killed the guard at the door and pushed their way 
into the hall. Martinez de Alcandara, a step-brother 
of the viceroy’s, took up the defence and the grey- 
haired Francisco Pizarro drew his sword. Two of the 
conspirators were slain by the blows that the old man 
dealt out with youthful vigour, but then a third pierced 
his throat with a thrust of his sword. 

Pizarro fell dying to the ground, and traced with 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 179 


his finger the sign of the cross on the stone pavement, 
the last pious effort of the bloodthirsty conquistador 
who had used Christ’s banner as a pretext for his deeds 
of violence. But before he could kiss this cross, another 
sword-thrust put an end to his life. 

To save him from mutilation by Almagro’s supporters, 
who were still thirsting for vengeance, some faithful 
friends wrapped his body in a linen sheet and buried 
him during the night in the most remote corner of the 
cathedral. It was not until sixty years later that his 
piteous earthly remains were placed in a coffin and 
solemnly interred in the new cathedral at Lima. In 
spite of all his cruelty, we cannot deny a certain greatness 
to this man, who had succeeded in destroying a realm 
of millions of souls with two hundred men and in raising 
himself from the despised position of a swineherd to 
that of viceroy of a great kingdom. 

To his credit it must be said that he was very un- 
assuming in private life, spent the greater part of the 
treasure he acquired on the erection of public buildings, 
and that in his later years he made an honest attempt, 
at any rate as far as the land was concerned, to repair 
the devastation he had wrought. 

But he was a man who would use any means, however 
base, to achieve his ends and who, as is proved by the 
murders of Atahuallpa and Amalgro, broke faith and 
acted deceitfully with friend and foe alike. 

What might not the Inca kingdom have become if a 
really far-sighted statesman had come instead of the 
conquistadores with their lust of gold ? 

Supposing the realm of Tahuantinsuyu had not been 
destroyed but strengthened ; how easy it would have 


180 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


been for these intelligent people to have adapted them- 
selves to the benefits—if offered by the hand of peace— 
of a civilization more advanced in some directions, 
although scarcely more desirable on the whole ! 

How easily this nation might have become an ally 
of European powers ! 

Pizarro’s guilt was indeed colossal, greater indeed 
than he was able to understand. 

Brehm sums up his judgment in the following words : 

“When Pizarro, an unknown adventurer, landed in 
Peru with his soldiers, he found the land in an unusually 
high state of civilization and of the greatest prosperity. 
Peace and order reigned throughout this realm, whose 
subjects lived in comfort, not only contented with their 
lot, but happy. 

“Plains and valleys were like well-tended orchards, 
and not only provided their cultivators with an abun- 
dant living, but permitted them to put such a surplus 
in the public storehouses as not only could but did 
fill them to overflowing. 

“Innumerable flocks of tame llamas grazed on the 
plateaux and mountains, just as many lived in fullest 
freedom on the mountain ranges, providing the inhabi- 
tants with wholesome, savoury food and warm, woollen 
clothing. 

“The country was ripe for even higher civilization, 
and this would no doubt have found ready acceptance 
by natives of such a gentle and yielding disposition, 
if the prosperous land had not been given over by 
Pizarro to the hands of rough, uncultured soldiers. 

‘All that had been built up by the efforts of the 
Incas in the course of centuries of mingled firmness 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 181 


and wise control, was overthrown by senseless con- 
querors in less than a decade. Fertile lands, bearing 
rich harvest of all imaginable fruits and vegetables, in 
a few years were so overgrown by briars and weeds 
that they would never be so productive again. 

“ During the military rule, the native population 
succumbed under the inhuman burdens and afflictions 
imposed upon them so mercilessly by their foreign 
conquerors ; the numerous flocks of llamas disappeared 
in a marvellously short time, thanks to their wholesale 
destruction by undisciplined soldiery, who often killed 
hundreds of these animals not to make use of their 
flesh or fleeces, but simply and solely that their brains 
might provide a treat for revellers desiring a special 
dainty !”’ 

Such is the terrible but true summing-up of the life- 
work of the conquistadores. 

A few weeks later, Inca Manco too met with his death. 
He had come to blows with a Spanish soldier, who 
broke his head with a skittle-ball. 

The Spanish government now wished in real earnest 
to put the land in order and sent to Peru as new 
viceroy and commander the distinguished Spaniard, 
Blasco Numez Vela. 

He was to suppress all rebellion and, at the same 
time, put a stop to another existing evil. Pizarro, 
namely, to put a check to the entire depopulation of 
the country, had brought in great numbers of negro 
slaves and now the destruction of the Inca people 
was followed by fresh unheard-of cruelties, practised 
on these black dependants. 

Numez had the reputation of being a man, no less 


182 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


honourable than unbending—a character, of course, by 
no means likely to please adventurers, carousing on 
Inca gold. 

One Pizarro, however, was still living, Gonzalo, the 
last of the brothers, for Juan too had fallen in the 
strife with Manco. This Gonzalo placed himself at 
the head of those rebels who refused allegiance to the 
viceroy, then landing, in case he should not unhesita- 
tingly confirm the conquistadores in all their rights. 

The state-council in Lima, the audienza, itself went 
over to Gonzalo and the viceroy found himself com- 
pelled to retreat with his loyal followers to the town 
of Trujillo. 

Gonzalo Pizarro made a formal entry into Lima, 
when the royal banner was carried in front of him 
and he even sent a messenger to Spain to demand 
recognition as the viceroy chosen by the will of the 
nation. | | 

Meanwhile, however, Numez returned at the head of 
the army he had raised with all speed. Some battles 
were fought in which Numez showed exemplary valour, 
but he was outnumbered, and the brave man, who 
might have done some good, met his death in a skirmish 
near Quito whither he had again been forced to retreat. 
He fell from his horse and a negro slave severed his 
head from his body. 

Once more Gonzalo Pizarro entered Lima but, this 
time, with the wreath of victory round his brow. 

The bishops of Cuzco, Quito and Bogota rode at his 
side and all Peru lay beneath his feet ! 

The fresh disturbances in Peru attracted attention 
in Spain, and it was feared, not without reason, that 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 183 


force would prove of no avail. For how could they 
send an army large enough to prove a match for 
Gonzalo’s troops ? 

A wise monk, Pedro de la Gasca, then came forward 
and promised to achieve by persuasion what was 
impossible by force. He was appointed President of 
Peru, although he himself declared that he would hold 
that position only when he had defeated and deposed 
the rebel. 

He then crossed the sea and this Pedro de la Gasca 
must indeed have had a clever head and an eloquent 
tongue, for he succeeded in achieving his object. 

The country now rose against Pizarro and was once | 
again the scene of bloody civil war, which ended, after 
several battles, in the capture and decapitation of 
Pizarro. Thus died the last of the Pizarro family, 
the last of the adventurers who had destroyed the 
Inca kingdom, and the short, mad rush for gold and 
glory was paid for by life! 

A few words must be added concerning the last Incas. 

After Manco’s death Xairi Tupac Yupanqui was chosen 
as Inca, and for fifteen years lived, more or less in 
hiding, amongst the mountains. Meantime Andres 
Hurtado de Mendoza, who was appointed viceroy in 
Lima, really wished to put an end to the civil wars and 
to live at peace with the last of the Inca people. 

He invited Yupanqui to Lima, but the Inca was on 
his guard and it was a long time before he trusted 
_ the Governor’s efforts at peace. 

At last, however, he determined to accept, with an 
escort of three hundred followers, the Governor’s 


invitation. 


184 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


What dignity was shown by this descendant of the 
Incas who had grown up under the victors’ yoke ! 

Before he entered the gates of Lima he removed the 
borla from his brow; as an Inca, sorrowing over the 
loss of his kingdom, he would not appear before his 
conquerors wearing the insignia of his imperial office ! 

The viceroy put a palace at the Inca’s disposal and 
treated him as an honoured guest, for he was anxious 
by means of their ruler, even if one in name only, to 
win over the Incas who were still in force amongst 
the hills. In this connection, tradition tells the following 
little anecdote. The Archbishop of Lima gave a feast 
in honour of the Inca, possibly too in the hope that 
his guest would give him a handsome present from one 
of his hidden treasure-stores. But the Inca drew a 
thread out of the costly velvet tablecloth and turned 
to the Spanish Governor, saying : 

“All this tablecloth is mine, but you only give me 
and my family this one poor thread ! ”’ 

And with these words he fell into brooding silence. 

Not long after he too died, probably from poison at 
the hands of the Spaniards. 

His younger brother was then chosen as Inca, but he 
lived high amongst the wild mountains in the neigh- 
bourhood of the river Amazon and had all the roads 
and bridges leading to his camp destroyed. But the 
Spaniards would not leave him even this last refuge. 
Francisco de Toledo, then living as Governor in Peru, 
captured thirty-nine of the Inca relatives, and as 
befitted a worthy disciple of Pizarro, he set about 
compassing their death, not by open violence but by 
deceitful cunning. Under pretext of a mark of honour, 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 185 


the thirty-nine Inca nobles were forced to take up 
their abode in a pest-ridden district, where before the 
first year had elapsed thirty-eight succumbed to the 
climate. 

The Governor then dispatched a general to catch the 
last member of the Inca royal family, for the sole 
reason that he was an Inca, for he lived like a frightened, 
hunted creature in the wilds of the mountains. 

Inca Tupac Amaru was broken-spirited now and 
never thought of resistance. He built a raft and tried 
to escape with the remnant of his treasures down the 
Amazon river. Had his attempt been successful, 
perhaps he, a second Manco Capac, might have appeared 
to some wild Indian tribe in the primeval forests of the 
Amazon to bring them civilization and to found another 
of the Sun-God’s peaceful realms. But his persecutors 
would not even allow him to flee. They overtook him, 
and the last Inca resigned himself to his fate without 
a blow being struck. 

He was led before the Governor; his last treasures 
were stolen from him and given as a reward to the 
General who had captured him, and this peaceable man, 
who had spent his whole life in the mountains, with 
not a sin on his conscience but that he was an Inca, 
was examined by torture. 

He was condemned to death for the high treason, 
which he had never committed, after his judges had 
not hesitated to use the rack to extort from him and 
his companions confessions as to where more treasures 
were hidden. 

On the Haucaypata Square, the former scene of all 
the Inca gala days, where, every year, the nation 


186 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


celebrated the peaceful Raymi feast, the square which 
Huayna, the last reigning Inca, had—of all his race 
the only one forgetful in his extravagance, ambition 
and arrogance of the spirit of his fathers, the cause of 
his nation’s downfall—encircled with a golden chain ; 
on this square the scaffold was erected on which the 
sole survivor of the Incas was to lose his life as a 
sacrifice to the Spaniards’ insatiable lust of gold. 

Inca Tupac mounted the scaffold with proud dignity 
and gave his neck to the executioner’s axe. It was in 
the year 1572, and already the last Inca ruler was 
killed and but a few hundreds of his subjects wandered 
homeless in the mountains. We have seen that in 
1603, thirty years later, their numbers were reduced 
to five hundred and sixty-seven. Soon after, these too 
were gone, vanished—dead, the last remnant of a great 
nation of millions of people, of kindly instincts and of 
good natural gifts, a civilized nation of the first rank, 
murdered and utterly exterminated by fanaticism and 
lust of gold; surely the most frightful tragedy that 
history has ever recorded ! 


* * * * * 


And what became of Peru ? 

As early as January 18, 1535, Francisco Pizarro had 
laid the foundation of Lima, the future capital, and in 
an incredibly short time this underwent a most mar- 
vellous development. 

This Ciudad de los Reyes, the “‘ City of the Kings,” 
as it was named from its foundation on that church 
festival, certainly contained all the Inca gold now 
converted into private wealth. It was here the Spaniards 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 187 


erected the Governor’s residence, and an exceptional 
number of churches and monastic buildings; what 
more favourable soil could be found for them ? 

The Inca temples with their golden treasures lay in 
ruins and how could heretic gold be put to a nobler 
use than to find its way into the coffers of the most 
saintly monks and provide them with comfortable 
quarters ? 

Barely a century later, Lima was noted for its abun- 
dance of fine streets, splendid shops, grand carriages 
and extraordinary luxury. 

Of course, for the gold gained so quickly by shameless 
theft slipped easily through its owners’ fingers and 
adventurers became gay cavaliers ! 

The ladies of Lima, too, were renowned for their beauty 
and charm, and still more so for their gaiety of life. 

In the numerous convents, too, there was by no 
means such chaste and simple purity as once upon a 
time in the Aclliahuazt in Cuzco, the Cuzco of the 
heathen—and therefore lost—Virgins of the Sun. 

The numbers of amiable “ pretty ladies’’ who bore 
the adventurers company prevented such a sharp line 
being drawn between honourable women and prostitutes 
as existed between Inca wives and the despised pam- 
payrunas. 

Then came an evil time, however. The Inca gold 
was dissipated, no one had learned to work, the land 
lay waste; the star of the young capital seemed about 
to set, but Fate willed it otherwise. 

Yet again on three occasions undeserved treasure 
was to fall into the new colony’s hands with no effort 
on its part. 


188 THE WORLD OF THE INCAS 


After the Inca treasures had been thrown to the 
winds, they discovered, on the plateau, the silver mines 
of Potosi, a rich source of wealth not utterly exhausted 
even now. And as this source of revenue began to 
grow less, it was replaced by the output of guano. 
Then, when a system of robbery, totally without the 
Inca care in preserving the birds at breeding times, not 
only almost exterminated them entirely but exhausted 
the supply of valuable manure, a fresh gold-mine was 
found in the newly opened beds of saltpetre. 

Thus, then, Lima was long a paradise for all fortune- 
hunters in the New World. 

It was almost as prosperous as Cuzco in the Inca 
days, except that the Inca wealth was founded on a 
well-ordered state, on sound work and production, but 
the new riches were drawn from illegitimate sources, 
extravagantly exploited, and filled the pockets of a 
small minority only, whilst poor, neglected Indians, 
black slaves and the worst kind of mixed races, 
languishing in indescribable dirt, were the only popula- 
tion, and that a very sparse and scattered one, of the 
districts cultivated in earlier days, but which now had 
long since reverted to dry desert or primeval forest-land. 

Even in the period from 1810 to 1821, when Peru, 
after hard fighting, broke away from Spain and became 
an independent state, it only improved its condition 
by slow degrees, and groaned under the weight of 
numberless revolutions, national money crises and 
wars. It has never again reached the prosperity it 
once possessed under the Incas, and it is highly 
improbable that its sparsely populated lands ever will 
reach it again. 


THE SUN-GOD’S PARADISE 189 


We see, then, in its history a dead civilization, an 
immense, irreparable loss, and read there, too, an 
instructive warning, perhaps never more needed than 
in the present day ! 

The Inca kingdom shows that a state, insisting on the 
complete abolition of individual property is conceivable 
or possible only when, on the one hand, every member 
of that state relinquishes all claim to personal posses- 
sions, and, on the other, when those who guide its 
affairs are, like the first twelve Inca-rulers, entirely 
single-eyed in devotion to their work and unwilling to 
swerve one hand’s breadth from the path which they 
recognize as that which alone can lead to the attainment 
of their ideals. 


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